The Deepest Ocean (Eden Series) (28 page)

She was trained to keep their link what Seawatch called
unidirectional
, because the shark had to be controlled by the emotions she chose to project, rather than her being panicked by its mindless, animal responses. But she was alone in the Iron Ocean and had confronted too much already.
To hell with that
. She opened her consciousness to what the shark felt.

The world went dark and cold as the ocean’s depths. And from those depths, a vast presence rose towards her.

The shark could only let her see and feel what it did. She sensed a creature so huge that the seabed itself might have been pushing up towards the surface, displacing tons of water, sending tremors through her. Something had been wakened that should have been left sleeping.
And what the shark felt in response was too intense to be called fear—it was a dread that turned the pit of her stomach cold.

Not for the first time, she wished the shark could talk to her, just once. Was what she had sensed real in any way, or was it a falseling, a deceptive impression the rogue operative had left behind? If that was possible at all.
And if it is real, what on Eden is it?
Darok had spoken of greatwhales, the sea emperors whose battering-ram heads were filled with oil and ambergris, but she didn’t think the shark would be so terrified even of those.

Darok.
She longed for him, because no matter how much he hated Seawatch, in his arms she was as safe as she was with the shark. Perhaps safer, since the rogue Kovir certainly couldn’t control another man. No, she had to forget about Darok, because she wasn’t likely to see him again. She had to fight the Kovir instead.

Irrelevant though it was, she wondered again about his name. Unfortunately she wasn’t familiar with any of the suffixes for whales, whereas if he had been linked to a shark she would have known his name at once. Fin, Stripe, Hammer, Tail… Odd how those all referenced part of the shark, rather than the entire animal.

Doesn’t matter.
She smoothed her hand along the shark’s side.
Think of what to do next
.

She lifted her head. The shark swam around the fishing boat as if it was moving through mud, and the circles it made seemed aimless rather than part of a hunting strategy. If it moved any slower, it would suffocate itself.

She tried to put herself in the Kovir’s place. As far as he knew, she was no longer any danger—and since she had an all-but-crippled shark, he was quite right. So would he send something more powerful than a greatwhale after her? No, that would be overkill, a waste of effort and resources. Where would he send it, then?

After
Daystrider
, of course.

A thread of iron crept through her spine and stiffened it. After what he had done to her shark, she wasn’t going to let him harm Darok as well, and she knew where
Daystrider
would be moored. She had to warn Darok, although reaching him would use up what remained of the shark’s strength. Then again,
Daystrider
offered her a slim hope of returning home, and in its current condition, the shark did not. She swallowed hard, trying to suppress her shame.

Practical matters first. She swam to the fishing boat and searched it thoroughly, hoping for fresh water. There was none, but beneath a thwart was a mango she bit into at once, not bothering to peel off the rind. It would have to be enough until she found
Daystrider
.

Fish lay thick in the boat—pomfrets like silver saucers, spotted mackerel and some crabs which clutched and snapped at each other. She threw the largest fish into the shark’s path. It took no notice and went on with its rhythmic circling as though trying to wear a path in the ocean.
Like an animal in a cage
, she thought, disquieted.

Let’s go, beautiful one
. She slipped over the side and told it the truth she hadn’t wanted to face.
This is the last journey you’ll have to make.

Chapter Ten

Heart of Coral

I’ve got to stop getting my hopes up
, Darok thought when he reached topside and Abrion Merrex, the officer of the watch, told him that it was another man. The boat drew parallel to
Daystrider
, which took some time since the man was sculling slowly. He grasped the rope ladder and pulled himself up to the gunwale. By now the crew seemed more or less used to the sight and didn’t crowd around for a better look, so Darok stepped back to allow the man a little room.

The lanternlight fell on him for the first time, picking out the rags and bandages that seemed to be all he wore. Strips of filthy linen wrapped his throat and forehead.

He climbed over the rail. “Captain?”

“Yes,” Darok replied, and realized a moment too late what was wrong. The man’s voice didn’t rasp with thirst and the question had been meant to single him out from the crew. Unarmed, the man charged at him.

Darok flung himself aside, rolled away—fetching up against the foremast—and drew his sword. The hiss of steel against oiled leather echoed as the rest of the men on deck pulled their weapons as well. They all carried blades, and the man in rags wore no armor.

It didn’t seem to make a difference. He lunged again. Darok sprang to his feet, his back to the solidity of the mast and his sword in his hands. He’d
spit
the bastard—

—except one of his men did so first. Stewen Kier darted forward and buried a long-bladed flenser in the man’s back.

The man stiffened and Darok took full advantage of it. He drove his longsword into the man’s belly. The steel sank in easily—too easily, like skewering a jellyfish—and the man’s body jolted with the impact. Darok pulled the sword back, and it came away with none of the resistance of muscle or cartilage against the blade.

None of the blood, either.
What the hell?

The man spun around. Before Stewen could react, the man’s hand closed around his throat.

The head. Go for the head.

He brought his sword down in a two-handed chop against the back of the man’s neck, a powerful swing with all his strength behind it. And the man flung up an arm, twisting at the shoulder and bending back at the elbow. The blade struck his forearm instead, but instead of taking the limb off, it split skin and rang off something far harder than bone. The shock was so violent that Darok’s hands went numb. He managed to wrench the sword back, mind racing as he tried to think what to do.

The man pivoted on one heel and hurled Stewen’s body at him.

Shadows wheeled across the deck. The deadweight crashed into Darok and he went down. Before he could push Stewen’s body away, the man flung himself on top of both of them.

The impact drove most of the air from Darok’s lungs, and the sight before him froze what little breath he had left. The bandage around the man’s head had come off. Lanternlight glanced off his bare scalp and the nubs pushing their way out of his forehead, as though he was growing a grotesque crown. His arm plunged down, hand clawing for Darok’s face.

Darok twisted his head aside, and cold fingers slipped off his sweat-slickened skin. Then the crew was on the man, knives flashing as they rose and fell. What sounded like a belaying pin struck in sticky liquid thuds, followed by a sharp crack as it broke. The man swung his free hand like a flail and bone shattered, followed by a gurgling scream, but his other hand kept groping for Darok’s face.

“
Get back!
” Alyster yelled, and the men pulled away. Something boulder-heavy slammed against the man, hammering Darok flat against the deck, but wood splintered and the thick heavy smell of pitch filled his nose. The man turned his head, at an angle no human head should have been able to turn.

“Burn him,” Alyster said.

The man lurched up and the fire-arrow missed him by inches. It buried itself in the foremast instead. Before another could follow, the man ran to the gunwale, globs of pitch falling from his back and splatting against the deck. He tossed himself bodily over the rail and there was a great splash from below.

Cautiously, the men crept to the rail and glanced down. Ebric nocked another arrow and scurried out on a spar projecting over the water, but Darok doubted he could see much in the dark—and if the man wasn’t affected by swords, an arrow wouldn’t be much use either.

He rolled Stewen’s body off. Some of the pitch had splattered across his boots and he pulled them off while the men scraped the rest of the sticky black substance off the deck. He could only imagine what the master carpenter would say if that caught fire again.

“Post watchers on all sides in case he—it surfaces,” he told Alyster.

“Aye, sir. At least we know why they kept sending us prisoners.” Alyster hesitated. “Should we do anything about them? I mean, if they…”

If they turned out to be like that too. Murderous and unhumanly flexible, with bones that could not be broken. What had grown from the man’s forehead reminded Darok of a story he had once read, about a Turean god who reigned beneath the waves and wore a crown of coral.

“No,” he said, “but I’ll question them later.” One of the men had picked up Darok’s fallen sword, and the rest of them were gaping at the translucent slime that coated the blade.

“Don’t touch it,” Darok said sharply, and found a rag to wipe the sword clean. He sheathed it before he went to his cabin and gulped another cup of coffee that he didn’t taste. There was no point in trying to get back to sleep—in fact, sleeping wasn’t a good idea as long as they were in the Iron Ocean where the Tureans seemed to have more tactics than he did—so he questioned the prisoners. He had expected them to look bewildered and claim they knew nothing of the man, but when he described the man’s more Denalait features, they both told him it sounded like a Lastlander. Colyn something, according to Kemay.

“But there was nothing unusual about Colyn,” Lucee said. “We all gave him up for dead. The pirates must have seized him when he tried to slip through the blockade.”

One more mystery
, Darok thought wearily. By afternoon there was no sign of the man’s corpse floating in the water, but he decided against burying Stewen’s body there. He would have done so in the open stretches of the Iron Ocean, but not where a dangerous enemy had disappeared the night before. Salt-preservation would hold Stewen’s body until they were somewhere safer, except barring a miracle, the ship was unlikely to leave the inlet. Another man had been badly hurt in the fight, his cheekbone smashed by a backhand, and he was resting in the surgery.

No boats were sighted the next day, and Darok considered posting lookouts on the cliffs at the mouth of the inlet. Alyster wasn’t in favor of it. “If anyone’s assigned to that kind of dead man’s watch and they disappear, the crew won’t take it well. Some of them are already wondering why we don’t just go home, now that we know we can’t save Lastland.”

“We can’t save Lastland, but what about the prisoners?” He had no intention of abandoning Yerena either, but at least she had her shark. “As long as that Turean bitch knows she can get at us through them, she’ll keep them alive. Once we’re gone…”

Alyster didn’t look convinced. “What exactly can we do to free them?”

“More than we’ll be able to do if we run for home.”

Alyster considered that, then shrugged. “I suppose there’s not much point going home in disgrace and failure either. Anyway, the pirates are close enough that we might not be able to outrun them, especially if they have the weather gauge.”

That nearness was probably a good thing, Darok thought. The enforced inactivity chafed away what little patience he had left, and before nightfall he wished he could just fight the Tureans and get it over with. The next afternoon, though, the rest of the crew was at their stations when the lookout’s conch sounded.

He glanced at the other end of the inlet, but there was no sign of any Turean galleys. That time, when he thought of Yerena, he wasn’t wrong.

The inlet opened into a bay that was as sheltered a place as she could have found in the Iron Ocean, and Yerena thought through a daze that the shark could at least die in peace there. Her mind felt as bruised as her arm, and she winced as she released it from the rigid lock she’d maintained.

It had taken them almost a day to reach the inlet and during that time she’d pushed both herself and the shark past their breaking points, the one emotionally and the one physically. Forcing herself to feel nothing but tranquil acceptance wore her down. The more she worked to feel that, the more fake it seemed, and she struggled to impose the façade on the shark.

But it found Rosefall and
Daystrider
was waiting, though from the suspicious looks as she climbed aboard, she guessed something was very wrong. Half the crew seemed ready to draw their knives, and she stopped where she was, searching their ranks until her gaze stopped on Darok. It was a relief to see him there and unhurt.

“Welcome back.” His tone was as formal as his face.

“Thank you.” Yerena glanced over her shoulder and saw the grey fin heading into the bay, disappearing beneath the water. Her heart twisted. It wasn’t fair, that the shark would die not just slowly but alone. She wanted to be there beside it.

With its head in your lap like you were playing at maiden and unicorn?
a voice that sounded like her mentor asked. She climbed over the rail and staggered when she let go, but Darok caught her elbow.

“My cabin,” he said brusquely, and Yerena nodded, too tired to do anything more. Once they were there, he pulled a chair out and she slumped into it, then began unlacing her watersuit only out of sheer habit.