The Deepest Ocean (Eden Series) (24 page)

“Would your people have kept the women as…” A stone had lodged in his throat, and he fought to clear it. “As bed slaves?”

The Turean’s lip curled. “We have women of our own. And mainlander slaves are more trouble than they’re worth, what with our water not being good enough for them. Is that why you came on board?”

Julean’s hand shook, as it had never done when he had performed surgery. If the Tureans considered adult Denalaits too much trouble, they weren’t likely to bother raising a Denalait child.

“If the survivors of that ship were killed,” he said, “where could I find their remains?”

“On the Isle of Bones.”

“That’s a lie. I know you only bury your own kind there.”

“What the hell do you expect me to say to a madman who’s got a knife to my neck?”

The door opened. The Turean turned in that direction at once, careless of the blade scraping a shallow furrow through his flesh, and Julean slid out from behind the chest, getting behind the Turean. “Nion,” the man gasped, but as he tried to pull away, Julean twisted his arm up behind his back. With the knife digging that much deeper into his throat, the man didn’t struggle. Julean smelled the hot coppery scent of blood.

The man who had entered, the one addressed as Nion, didn’t move from his position in the doorway. His hands were empty and his face utterly blank. Julean felt more afraid than before.

“Raise an alarm and he dies,” he said through numb lips.

“Everyone dies.” Nion might have been gently correcting a young student. “You and I and the islands and the world itself. But for now I am more interested in who sent you.”

Julean wondered whether he meant Darok. “No one sent me.”

“Nion.” The other Turean’s voice was choked and terrified. “He’s mad—”

“Quiet, Russarn.” Nion closed the door and stepped from one side to another, head tilting.
He’s trying to get a good look at me
, Julean thought.

“Stop moving.” He drew the knife sideways. Russarn whimpered, and Julean’s hand went still. He felt the younger man trembling. Even if it was feigned to lower his guard, even if he confronted a Turean, he was a physician and he had never before taken a blade to another person with the intent to harm.

Nion stopped, but Julean had the impression he’d done so because it suited his purposes rather than because he had followed an order. “No.” He sounded as though he had paid for a pie and received just the crust. “You’re not who I expected.”

What was that supposed to mean?
Julean knew control of the encounter was slipping away from him, but hunger and exhaustion and fear had worn down his resources. He couldn’t allow this Turean to gain the upper hand, but he also couldn’t marshal his thoughts enough to steer everything back on course.

“Who did you expect?” he said instead.

“A gift from the sea.” Nion’s clothes were of the same colors and simplicity as the other Turean’s, but Julean knew which of them outranked the other. “I could have borne the gift being a Denalait, a drylander, a godless slave of the thing you call the Union.”

“Unity.” Julean tried to think where this was all bound. Nion was clearly stalling with all the nonsense about a gift, but for what reason? Were more Tureans expected in the chapel shortly?

“After all,” Nion said, “you’ve eaten the godsbread and drunk the sacred wine. But I expected a woman.”

“From the sea? A mermaid?”

“If that was the gods’ wish. But perhaps you were sent for a reason. Are you a herald, bringing news of the gift?”

This is insane
. “I’m a husband searching for his wife.”

“A pity,” Nion said. “Kill him.”

Julean hadn’t been expecting that. The other Turean, Russarn, had. He twisted in Julean’s grasp and drove one bent arm backward. His elbow rammed into Julean’s stomach.

The air left Julean’s chest in a sickening rush of nausea and he doubled up. Russarn grabbed Julean’s wrist, pushing the blade away from his throat as he turned fully. Still bent over, gagging, Julean couldn’t see any higher than the man’s chest and didn’t have the strength to pull his hand free. Russarn’s fingers dug into his wrist and he dropped the knife.

Then he lurched forward. His head rammed into Russarn’s belly and the man stumbled back. Julean gripped the edge of the wooden chest for balance and lashed his foot out. The kick connected hard, heel to kneecap, and Russarn sprawled on the floor.

Nion opened the door, but not fully. “Pass the word for Caid and Hascer, would you?” he said to someone outside. “Oh, and Benoffel too, if he’s not at his duties yet.”

Russarn scrabbled for the fallen knife. On hands and knees he reached it before Julean—but he was on hands and knees, and Julean was standing. He kicked out again, and his foot struck the soft flesh beneath the Turean’s chin, knocking his jaw upward with a sharp snap of teeth. The knife missed him. Julean spun around and grabbed the half-full bottle of nectar. As he turned, Russarn lurched up from the floor and Julean brought the bottle down on the man’s head with all his strength.

Glass and bone cracked. As Russarn slumped to the floor, Nion watched with mild interest.

“You fight well for a landsman,” he said. “A pity you aren’t more than that.”

The door opened and three more Tureans crowded into the room, stopping when they saw Russarn’s body. Julean couldn’t hope to hold them all off, and he glanced at the window.

“No.” Nion’s voice was soft as a web’s touch on a fly’s wing. “It won’t be so easy for you.”

Julean’s body went cold. The three men all carried blades—daggers and cutlasses—and those gleamed in the candlelight as they were drawn. Though he would much rather have been spitted on them than turned over to Nion.

The Tureans paced forward slowly, fanning out.
Unity help me
. What could he say that would give them pause?

A gift. A gift from the sea.

“Wait.” The words tumbled out of his mouth in his desperation. “You wanted a woman from the sea. There’s—there’s one aboard
Daystrider—
”

“A shark sorceress?” Nion said. “I knew that. Can you give her to me?”

“I…”

“I thought not. Take him alive. I will offer his blood to the sea.”

Chapter Nine

Hunting the White

“That inlet, sir?” The sailing master sounded doubtful, more of Darok’s sanity than of his request. “They’ll have some difficulty flanking us, true, but we’ll be trapped there.”

“I know,” Darok said. The Tureans weren’t likely to send just two galleys after him the next time, so he couldn’t risk meeting them in the open sea. He had to even the odds, which meant choosing the site of the battle, and an inlet would limit the number of galleys engaging them at one time. Plus,
Daystrider
would be close enough to land…

To restock supplies
, half of his mind said.
For the survivors to swim ashore
and live a few hours longer before they’re hunted down
, the other half knew.

“Not the first time we’ve had our backs to a wall.” But Alyster didn’t look too optimistic. The best they could hope for, Darok thought, was to draw as many of the galleys away from the Lastland blockade as possible and hope the loyalists took advantage of that opportunity. Surely many of the Tureans would join the hunt, especially after they heard about the sinking of
Rorqual.

It occurred to him that Yerena was doing something similar with the pack of killer whales.
Yerena.
In public, she had been unobtrusive as a shadow, but he would have missed his own shadow had that disappeared, and he missed her now.

And despite the crew’s trust in him, a new tension crawled through the ship. Darok felt sure that if it was just a matter of his setting his own deck alight, no one would have been too concerned, because most of the deck and rigging was being replaced. Their physician’s disappearance and the fact that the Tureans had killers on their side were a little more unnerving, though. He hoped devoutly that Yerena had been right about no one being able to get close enough to a greatwhale to control it.

At least they no longer needed to keep the ship’s identity a secret, so the catapult and barrels of pitch would be brought up to the deck as soon as it was able to take their weight. One of the men had already painted
Daystrider
on the hull, and from the three masts and the bowsprit, the circle flew. The ship flaunted its figurehead, a shieldmaiden who held a golden sphere high. A replacement rudder had been jury-rigged as well.

Alyster came to stand beside him, clearing his throat before he spoke. “May I ask what the plan is this time? Other than drawing their fire.”

“You’ll see.”

“Darok.” It was so startling to hear Alyster address him by name in public that he turned his head sharply. Alyster went on without any change in stance or tone, his eyes narrowed as if trying to see something on the horizon. “I’m well aware that you thrive on surprises, but I need to know what to do.”

Darok tried to keep any resignation out of his voice when he replied. He didn’t completely succeed.

“I have no idea,” he said.

There was a slight pause. “You don’t?”

Darok had a feeling his brother’s opinion of him had just plummeted all the way to the seabed. “I’m playing it by ear” was all he could say in his defense.

“I see.” Alyster still didn’t look at him. “If you’ll excuse me, Captain, I have to speak with Arnell.”

He turned and left. Darok felt a surge of irritation—what did Alyster
want
him to do, given that he’d been dealt a bad hand and had bluffed about as far as he could take it?—but that faded fast. His brother would never have the chance to command his own ship, as he’d dreamed of doing. It was one thing for the Admiralty to send
him
on a suicide mission; he could deal with that, and he’d even enjoy finding a way to survive such a trap.

But the situation was different when it involved the little brother who’d always looked up to him and wanted to do whatever he did. He had a responsibility there that went beyond even his duty to his crew, and now it was too late.

Struggling not to give in, he tried for what felt like the hundredth time to come up with a clever stratagem, but all he could think of was how they would die. After
Rorqual
’s sinking, the Tureans weren’t likely to try boarding and seizing his ship. Instead they would ram her to pieces, which at least laid to rest the Admiralty’s concern about
Daystrider
falling into enemy hands.
A miracle wouldn’t be amiss at a time like this
.

The new rudder at least worked and they set a course due east, keeping in sight of the nearest islands and alert for a Turean flotilla appearing on the horizon. The wind favored them and they made good speed, but Darok didn’t need to count the number of days of the siege to know the Lastlanders would be down to roots and rats. Even if there were no Tureans at all in
Daystrider
’s way, it would take them at least six days more to reach the island, assuming they had the wind. Once or twice he wondered whether their mission was a matter of throwing live men after dead ones—and if so, what the Admiralty hoped to gain from it. Surely he wasn’t
that
much of a liability to the Denalait navy.

When his evening meal was served, he forced himself to eat, but before he was done, his steward showed Lady Lisabe in. She was dressed as finely as always, but her smile didn’t reach her eyes.

“Captain,” she said. “I hoped to speak with Yerena, but I was told she’d left the ship this morning. When do you expect her to return?”

“I don’t.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“She’s gone. For good. Hunting those whales.”

“What?” The smile drained off her face completely.

“Wasn’t that what you wanted?” Darok pushed his chair back from the table. “I heard the tongue-lashing you gave her on the subject of doing her duty—hardly surprising she decided to die in the line of it, I suppose.”

He knew he was taking out his frustration and fear on her—spoiling for a quarrel, as Alyster would have put it—but she didn’t seem to hear anything he had said. She looked at him as though he was transparent and behind him stood her worst fears made flesh.

“Damn.” She spoke without moving her lips, and her guardsman moved forward quickly to pull a chair out for her. She didn’t sit down, but closed her hands over the backrest and remained standing.

If that was a pretense, it was a good one. Darok would have given a great deal to know what her plans for Yerena had been.

“Were you hoping to keep her in reserve until you needed to escape?” he said.

“Escape?” She looked blank, as if he had flown the word up via signal flags and she had to decipher it letter by letter. Then she laughed shortly. “Oh no, I didn’t want her to save me from the Tureans. I needed her to bring me to them.”

“Why? What are you—”

There was a sharp staccato knock on the door. Darok shook his head at the steward but the handle turned and Alyster let himself in. “Sir, the lookout spotted a woman.”

Yerena?
Darok thought at once, before Alyster went on. “In a rowboat, heading this way. We’re due to intercept shortly.”

Lady Lisabe slipped out and disappeared into her own cabin, her guards taking up position outside the door. Darok went topside and hurried to the prow, watching as the small boat drew closer. He knew she wasn’t Yerena, but with no way to tell whether she was a Turean, he kept a hand on the hilt of his sword as the boat drew level with
Daystrider
. He wouldn’t put it past the Tureans to send an assassin, suicidal though that might be for the assassin in question even if—as a woman—she had the advantage of surprise.