00.1 - The Blood Price (6 page)

“They could have run into that other patrol ship,” Silar mused. “Or hit a
squall and had their masts carried off.”

“Mother of Night!” Malus hissed. “Are you always this gloomy?”

“I prefer to say I’m no stranger to misfortune,” the young knight replied.

“More’s the pity,” Malus said. Then a glimmer of movement caught his eye.
“There!” he said, pointing out to sea.

The first of
Manticore
’s longboats heaved into view, its rowers
straining mightily against the oars. A ragged cheer went up from the corsairs
until a hissed warning from Lhunara put their minds back on business.

Within minutes all four of the corsairs’ longboats were being dragged ashore,
and
Manticore
herself had hove into view less than a mile from the beach,
outlined like a ghost ship in the moonlight. Amaleth jogged up the strand,
eyeing the raiders’ haul. “Sailors and plunder first,” the second mate suggested
to Malus. “Then the rest of the crew and the slaves.” He noticed the bloodstained
bandage on the highborn’s leg. “Will you head back with the loot?”

And look weak in front of the men, Malus thought? Oh, no. That would only
encourage Lurhan’s hidden assassin. The highborn shook his head. “Get the boats
loaded as quickly as you can,” he said. “I’ll go with the second wave.”

The second mate nodded. “Of course, sir,” he said with a faintly mocking
smile. Before Malus could reply, Amaleth had turned and was running back to the
boats.

They loaded the plunder aboard double-quick, and less than ten minutes later
the longboats were rowing back to
Manticore,
burdened with loot and a
third of the surviving raiders. Once there, however, it seemed to take hours to
unload their cargo. Before long Malus was looking worriedly to the east,
expecting to see the first rays of dawn at any moment. “What’s taking them so
long?” Malus muttered.

Just then there was a commotion from farther down the south road. One of the
lookouts came charging onto the beach and delivered a breathless report to
Lhunara. The first mate sent the corsair back the way he came and hurried over
to Malus, her expression grim.

“There’s a column of troops coming up fast along the coast road,” she said.
“Looks like Sea Guard.”

“By the Dark Mother!” Malus swore. “How did they get here so fast?”

Beside him, Silar pointed out to sea. “That’s how,” the young knight said.

It was the warship that had chased
Manticore
into the mists near the
Blighted Isle, her white sails billowing like wings in the moonlight. She was
bearing down fast upon the druchii corsair, eager for revenge. The hunters had
now become the hunted.

“Can our boats make it back to us in time?” he asked Lhunara.

“It doesn’t look like it,” she said, her voice hollow. Malus turned to the
first mate and saw she was staring at the distant
Manticore.
The corsair
ship was taking her boats aboard. Gul was abandoning the rest of the raiding
party to its fate.

In an awful flash of intuition Malus saw the trap that Gul had sprung on him.
The ship’s master had delayed the offloading at the ship as long as he could to
increase the chance they would be found. It was possible he’d even taken steps
earlier to make the corsair easier to discover. And the timing had worked out to
perfection. Gul now had a hold full of treasure and just enough sailors to make
it back home and claim Lurhan’s reward.

Lhunara looked up at Malus, a stricken expression on her face. “The Sea Guard
will be here any minute,” she said. “What do we do now?”

Malus straightened in his seat and took stock of their situation. Around
fifty corsairs waited on the sand, surrounding thirty increasingly defiant
slaves. Bile rose in Malus’ throat. He shook his head. There was only one thing
left to do.

“We die,” the highborn said.

Ten minutes later came the soft jingle of harness and the drumming of swift
feet along the coast road, and the relief column of Sea Guard troops came
swarming down onto the beach, weapons at the ready. The sight that awaited them
left many of the young warriors reeling in shock.

The white sands were black with blood in the fading moonlight. Dark-robed
bodies lay everywhere, their limbs strangely contorted in death. Bloodstained
figures in the simple garb of fisherman sat or staggered about the scene of
carnage, many with slave manacles still dangling from their wrists. Many wielded
gory knives as they stalked among the dead.

In moments the leader of the column arrived at the beach, and he, too, was
stunned by the brutality of what had happened. He pulled his winged helm from
his head, his face pale with shock. “For pity’s sake, help them,” he commanded
his troops, and the spearmen put down their weapons and moved to help the
survivors.

The lieutenant bit back a wave of despair as he surveyed the awful scene. His
gaze fell upon another villager, sitting alone against the side of a wagon’s
wheel. He approached the hunched figure, kneeling respectfully at his side.

“We came as soon as we could, cousin,” the lieutenant said. “What you did
here was… very brave.”

The figure sighed. “I know,” he replied in a dead voice. “But we had no
choice.” Before the lieutenant could reply Malus drew a dagger from within his
sleeve and stabbed the sorrowful elf in the eye.

As one, the “villagers” leapt at the surprised spearmen, slashing and
stabbing with their knives. Other corsairs leapt from the sands and attacked the
elves from behind. In moments the slaughter was complete.

Lhunara pulled off the villager’s tunic she’d worn over her armour.
Breathless, she staggered over to Malus. “The Lord of Murder favoured us,” she
gasped. “But what now?”

The highborn levered himself painfully to his feet and pulled off his own
disguise. “All is not yet lost.” He gestured out to sea. “
Manticore
wasn’t as fleet-footed at Master Gul hoped.”

Delayed by taking on her boats and with only a minimal crew to work her
sails, the corsair had been quickly overtaken by the elven warship, and now they
were grappled together in a brutal boarding action.

“These Sea Guard must have come ashore a few miles to the south,” Malus said.
“Their boats are likely waiting for them on the beach. If we can reach them in
time we can still rescue
Manticore
and get ourselves out of this mess.”

Lhunara thought it over and nodded. “We’ll load everyone into the wagons and
ride the horses to death if we must,” she said with a fierce grin, and turned to
shout orders to the corsairs.

As the raiders clambered aboard the wagons Malus surveyed the bloodstained
sands one last time. Killing the slaves had been the only way, he realized, but
the loss still ate at him. “Worth their weight in silver,” he muttered, shaking
his head in disgust. “I’ll likely not see such wealth again.”

Manticore
wallowed in the cold swells of the Sea of Malice as she limped the
last few leagues back to port. It had been a long voyage back; the raider had
suffered considerable punishment at the hands of the vengeful elves, and by the
time Malus and the raiding party had managed to sneak onto the enemy warship’s
deck, Gul’s troops had already been decimated. But the enemy captain had been
overconfident, believing his troops had finished the raiders trapped on the
beach, and had never expected a sudden attack from shore. By the time he
realized his mistake it had been far too late. The battle ended swiftly after
that. Malus ordered the warship set ablaze and the
Manticore
made good
her escape, and rewarded the crew with the plunder he’d taken from the village
in Ulthuan, in a single stroke he’d won the allegiance of the crew away from
Hathan Gul.

Master Gul had abased himself at Malus’ feet when the fighting was done. His
apologies were voluminous, and his pleas for mercy were most sincere. The
highborn gave the treacherous slug every opportunity to convey the depth of his
regret, slicing off only a small part of Gul’s body each day. The ship’s master
was still alive when Malus offered him to the sea witches as they passed the
tower of Karond Kar.

Standing at the prow of the crippled ship, Malus fished into the small coin
pouch at his belt. His fingers closed on a handful of rough objects and he held
them up to the sunlight. “All that plunder, and this is all the gold I have to
my name,” he said, showing Silar and Lhunara a handful of Gul’s teeth.

The young knight shook his head and turned his gaze back to the docks of Clar
Karond, just a few miles off the bow. Lhunara chuckled. “Melt them down and have
them made into a set of dice,” she suggested.

“Perhaps I will,” the highborn mused.

“What happens once we reach port?” Silar asked. “We’re more than three months
early, and you’ve nothing to show for your cruise.”

The highborn shrugged. “I could have come back dragging Teclis by the hair
and it wouldn’t have mattered,” he said. “I’ll return to Hag Graef and start
plying the flesh houses again. Who knows? I might even start breeding nauglir.”
He regarded Silar thoughtfully. “I misjudged you, Silar. A poor knight you may
be, and too honest for your own damned good, but you served me well. I’ll
release you from your oath here and now if you wish. You needn’t accompany me
back to that den of vipers at the Hag.”

Silar chuckled. “And miss the look on your father’s face? No, my lord. I’ll
accompany you.”

Malus nodded, then turned to Lhunara. “You, on the other hand, never gave me
any oath. Gul is dead, and Amaleth was killed in the battle off Ulthuan. By law,
Manticore
is your ship now.”

“True enough,” the first mate said, “but I’m done with sailing the seas. If
you’re still serious about taking me into your retinue, then I’ll give you my
oath.” She smiled. “But I expect to be well rewarded for my service.”

“You may wind up with more than you bargained for,” the highborn answered
sardonically.

“Speaking of bargains,” Silar interjected. “There’s still the matter of who
shot you on board that patrol ship off the Blighted Isle.”

Malus frowned. “Ah, yes. Lurhan’s hidden assassin. That was Amaleth, I expect.
I saw him with a crossbow just before the battle.”

“It was him, right enough,” Lhunara said. “I paid a couple of corsairs to
shadow him during the battle.” Her expression soured. “They weren’t supposed to
let him take a shot at you without my permission, though.”

“Your
permission
?” The highborn’s eyes went wide with
shock. “You knew Amaleth was Lurhan’s assassin the whole time?”

“Of course. I kept him alive as insurance, just in case you had any treachery
of your own in mind,” Lhunara replied. “What, did you imagine I would take you at
your word?”

For a moment, Malus was speechless, torn between murderous outrage and
grudging admiration. Silar leaned against the rail and chuckled softly, staring
out to sea.

“We’ll be the death of you yet, my lord,” the young knight said.

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