Bastial Steel (2 page)

Cleve swung his head back to find two swords aimed at him—Jessend’s guards.

She was already sighing. “We were just playing,” she told them.

But the aggression on their faces only stiffened, their swords remained pointed. Cleve wondered if two dogs would’ve been easier to convince he wasn’t a threat.

“Stand down,” Jessend demanded.

They relaxed their weapons, though their hard glares remained.

Cleve felt himself beginning to roll as the ship turned at a drastic rate. The guards stumbled and Jessend gasped.

Was Rek lying?
Did he convince Captain Mmzaza to turn the ship back to Kyrro?

By the time Cleve got to his feet, Jessend was already running to the front of the ship, her guards and Cleve close behind.

But Rek wasn’t there.

“Did the Elf tell you to turn?” Jessend asked Captain Mmzaza as she glanced around frantically. “Where is he?”

“The Elf?” the old captain replied in his crude accent, confused. “No, me pretty…er, me lady. The ship-eater ahead of us is the reason for the turn.”

“Ship-eater?” Jessend squeaked.

Captain Mmzaza lifted a telescope over his eye. “Aye, ships…among other things they eat.” He pointed, handing the telescope to Jessend. “There. Hurry, me pretty, before it ducks back underwater.”

Jessend looked through it while Captain Mmzaza took in a deep breath. “My you smell nice,” he uttered.

Jessend was too busy gasping at what she saw to pay attention.

“It’s a giant squid,” she said, correcting him.

“Is that what you call them in The Nest?” Captain Mmzaza laughed cruelly, taking back the telescope for another look. “It ain’t no squid, me pretty. Squids don’t come to the surface like ship-eaters. And squids wouldn’t use their tentacles to crush our vessel, devouring everyone and everything that touches water. Cousins of desmarls these are, you should know that, being from Greenedge. That’s why we’re going around it. Monsters have good eyesight, they do. Smart, too. Once they catch sight of a ship, they go underwater and head toward it, coming up only rarely to make sure they’re on the right path.”

As smooth as a cat, Jessend nestled under Cleve’s arm so that it fell around her shoulder. “So it won’t see us, Captain Mmzaza?” She clung tightly to Cleve, her voice worried.

“Shouldn’t.” The gnarled sea captain lifted the telescope to his eye again. “Unless it’s already caught sight of this enormous ship—oh,” he interrupted himself. “Better ready your archers. It’s coming for us.” His tone was so calm it took Cleve a breath before he even understood what Mmzaza was saying.

Jessend blurted it through a shriek. “The giant squid is coming for our ship?”

“Ship-eater, and yes. Hurry and ready your archers, me pretty—me lady,” he quickly corrected himself. “It’ll only resurface a few more times on the way here.”

Jessend jumped to the two guards nearby. “How many archers do we have?”

“Three, my lady,” one answered.

“That means four including me.” She spoke softly, as if thinking aloud. Then her head shot up to meet the eyes of the guards in front of her. “Do we have five bows on the ship?”

“Five, my lady? Yes we have five.”

“Cleve needs one as well. Bring the archers and bows to the deck and hurry.”

The guards were off. Then Cleve noticed that so was the captain.

“Where are you going?” Jessend shouted after him. “Who’ll steer the ship?”

Captain Mmzaza ignored her, running to the opening in the deck and dropping to his chest to sink his head within the empty space. The old man was surprisingly agile.

“Ye rowers, we got a ship-eater on our ass! Get us moving faster than a man’s bedding with his first woman or we’re dead.”

“You heard him,” some man bellowed below. “Row! Row! Row!” His voice fell into a steady pattern. Cleve felt the wind picking up as the speed of the ship increased.

Captain Mmzaza was huffing loudly by the time he returned.

Soon, the deck was filled with the rest of Jessend’s retinue. There must’ve been at least thirty of them.

All flocked together, they created a buzz of worried murmurs. They seemed ready to burst into flight like birds anticipating a predator. But they could not fly to safety, only sink, the looks on their faces making it clear this had become apparent to each of them.

Cleve had been brought a bow and quiver and aligned himself alongside the other archers on the edge of the ship, peering out over the still and silent sea. Jessend had her own bow to his right. It looked identical to the one Cleve had shattered with an arrow in King Welson Kimard’s castle.

To Cleve’s left came Rek. “They say some monster comes for the ship.” The Elf was smiling for some strange reason. Perhaps he was in disbelief?

“It’s true,” Cleve tried to convince him, keeping his eyes steady on the dark waters, waiting for movement.

From the corner of Cleve’s eye, he noticed Rek’s mouth slowly straightening. “What kind of monster?”

Something jutted out of the water, maybe a hundred and fifty yards from their ship. It was too small to see clearly, but Cleve still could tell it was gigantic. The way it displaced the water was as if a boulder had risen from the depths.

With Bastial Energy at the ready, Cleve pulled back his string and fired, soon noticing he was the only one to have done so. Some of the others let out disapproving grunts.

“Don’t waste the arrow,” one archer said while Cleve’s shot arced.

Cleve waited to see what happened before replying, his aim looking to be perfect, at least in that moment. But the beast submerged again just before the arrow struck.

“Bastial hell,” the same man muttered when he saw that Cleve’s arrow would’ve hit if he’d just released it sooner.

Each of them readied their arrows then, Jessend included. Cleve didn’t see how she had the strength to shoot such a long distance. But when the creature came up again, at around a hundred yards, her arrow was the only one besides Cleve’s to strike the beast. Its roar was like distant thunder, yet sharper, angrier.

The ship turned, Captain Mmzaza yelling from its front, “It won’t come up again, so we’d better change direction! When it can’t find us, that’s when it’ll show its ugly head.”

“How will we know where to look for it, then?” Cleve shouted back.

“We’re turning back to the west, boy. The ship-eater’s coming from the north. So it’ll pop up somewhere to your southeast. Spread along to the other side of the boat and the rear.”

While Cleve didn’t trust any other advice Captain Mmzaza had tried to give during their voyage, most of it being about women, at that moment, Cleve knew not to doubt him. Jessend ran with Cleve to the other side of the deck, the other three archers taking the rear.

Soon the crisp sound of breaking water turned Cleve’s head to the back of the boat, the three archers each desperately loosing arrows. As Cleve hustled over, a tree-sized tentacle swept over the ship.

Brushing over the archers, it caused them to tumble backward as it coiled in on itself and grabbed one of them.

Cleve and Jessend each shot at the speeding tentacle, both arrows sticking into it as a toothpick would into a man’s arm. Though, it was still enough for the beast to lose its grip on one of the archers before taking him into the sea.

Cleve noticed a shadow above him. Turning to his side, he found another tentacle coming over the railing. Screams from Jessend’s retinue burst out, yet the Princess did not join the chorus. Like Cleve, fear had not yet made her lose control of her body. She was steady as she aimed at the beast’s arm coming toward them.

They put two more arrows into it, and the tentacle snapped back into the water.

There was a shriek too deafening to be from a Human’s throat. With no more tentacles coming over the railings, Cleve took the chance to run to the stern in hopes of shooting the beast in the head. But Rek was already there with his palm out. The Elf was screaming as well. It was the loudest Cleve had heard him utter, but it was nothing compared to the bellowing beast below. Cleve knew the psychic must be putting all his energy behind his spell of pain.

The ship-eater couldn’t seem to handle it, no longer chasing the vessel and sinking back into the dark waters. Its screams were muffled but still shrill, quickly fading as the distance grew between it and the speeding ship.

Nearly a full minute they waited in silence, each watching for a sign of it resurfacing.

Eventually, Cleve came to realize it did not wish to follow—the Elf’s painful psychic spell was too much to bear.

“You
are
dangerous.” Jessend took two steps back from Rek, tilting her head away as if he were a living flame. “My father might still like you…” She glanced behind the boat, where the ship-eater had sunk back into the sea. “Or he might fear you worse than a desmarl.”

Chapter 2

When they arrived at the docks in Goldram, Cleve followed Jessend through the winding wooden walkways suspended over the water, watching as man after man stopped what he was doing to bow before the Princess. They gawked openly at Cleve. He could feel their curiosity pressing against him, heavier even than the salty humidity.

Cleve’s feet went no farther when he saw what he believed to be a carriage.

“Are those horses?” he asked.

With an excited grin, Jessend gasped. “That’s right, no horses in Ovira. But how did you recognize them, then?”

“We do have books and paintings,” he replied snidely.

He thought to apologize immediately after, but then he noticed a grin among her pouty lips.

“And here I thought you were a simple warrior who knew more ways to kill a man than he did names of books.”

The carriage to escort them to the palace was draped with a cloth embroidered with what Jessend explained to be the Takary family sigil—two blue soaring wings.

“It’s a long ride to the palace,” she said as they got inside and their driver somehow made the horses start galloping. “The palace is in the middle of a city called The Nest.”

The name came off as strange to Cleve, but he didn’t see a reason to mention it.

“Living in The Nest is supposed to represent how our citizens are treated like family.” There was some embarrassment in Jessend’s tone. “I didn’t think of the name,” she said flatly.

During the next bumps and turns of the road, Jessend slid her fingers along the knuckles of Cleve’s resting hand. He felt nothing from her touch and was glad for that. His mind was set on Reela. He wanted his heart to remain that way as well.

Jessend was beautiful, so much so he’d been worried he would find himself attracted to her. But then he would think of Reela’s shimmering green eyes over her sly grin, and his heart would twist, his stomach would rise, and he’d realize it was silly to worry anyone could replace her.

The Princess was a child compared to Reela, short and thin, and with small hands. Her touch did nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Soon, she stopped playing with his knuckles, letting her hand lie still underneath his like a dead fish.

That didn’t last long, either. She cleared her throat and pulled her hand back to her lap.

Cleve kept his mind busy looking out the window of the carriage, desperately trying to remember the scenery and the route. He would need to return to the docks to sail back to his home continent, Ovira.

“You don’t need to gag Rek when we arrive,” Cleve suddenly thought to tell her. The poor Elf had endured enough. “His psyche is strong, but he can’t convince anyone to do something they don’t want to do already.”

“King Welson Kimard of Kyrro told me you were sent to kill Rek,” Jessend said. “Did the Elf change your mind with psyche when you met him?”

“No,” Cleve gladly informed her. “My mind was changed when I found out the truth about which side he was on, and I never wanted to kill him anyway. He didn’t need any psyche to convince me.”

“You’re saying that—without psyche—you came to the decision to attack your own king’s castle?” It was clear by her tone that she’d always assumed his mind was twisted into that choice.

Cleve studied her face before deciding how to answer. For the first time, she seemed completely serious, worried even. When he’d shot an arrow at her, breaking her bow in two, she’d shown him excited shock, her mouth even on the verge of grinning. But she held no amusement with this question.

“It was the only logical thing to do.”

She forced a nervous smile. “If things ever get that bad again, come to me first.” She slid close to him, wrapping her arm around his and leaning against his shoulder. “You and I are a team now. We’ll help each other.”

Guilt pushed the air out of his lungs in a sorrowful sigh. Out of pity, he twisted his neck to kiss Jessend on the top of her head.

Poor little girl,
he said to himself.

She nestled against him even closer, intertwining her fingers with his.

A gate lined with guards appeared to be the only way into the front of the Takary Palace. Their driver opened the carriage door for Jessend, and Cleve crawled out through her side before he realized the same man was coming around to open his door.