Of Dawn and Darkness (The Elder Empire: Sea Book 2) (35 page)

It wasn’t worth considering just now, but as a Reader, Calder was still curious.

He finally started to slow when he got close to Urzaia. He needed to be nearby when Urzaia was finished to lead the man out before he was recaptured, but Calder wasn’t foolish enough to interfere in a Champion’s fight.

Which was just as well, because there was nothing he could have done to help.

The Cinderbeast built up momentum, loping across the back of the stone seats and bucking its head to try and gore the Woodsman. It didn’t come close. When that failed, it swatted at Urzaia with its claws, but the Champion swung around its neck like a monkey on a branch, laughing the entire time.

When the Kameira blew a burst of fire at nothing in particular, Calder knew it had given up. Urzaia must have sensed the same thing, because he swung himself down and to the Cinderbeast’s side. He steadied himself on the ground, drawing his hatchets back.

Stone cracked under his feet, and Calder stared. No matter how fast the coliseum was tearing itself apart, the stone shouldn’t have softened. Could the fire have done something? Or maybe the Intent of thousands of desperate people...

As Urzaia slammed his weapons forward, Calder realized the truth. A handful of separate pieces clicked together in his mind.

The stone wasn’t that weak, Urzaia was
just that heavy.

Rumor had it that the Sandborn Hydra, a Kameira actually native to the Izyrian desert around this very city, had the Intent to increase or decrease its own weight. The Blackwatch had commissioned some research into its unique properties as part of their work on
The Testament,
in the hopes of making the ship lighter without compromising hull strength. The research had come to nothing, as no one could locate a Sandborn Hydra for testing.

But according to legend, the Kameira’s hide was made of gold scales. Urzaia wore a golden hide around his upper arm.

Come to think of it, the black hatchets were a little obvious for a Soulbound Vessel.

In the time it took Calder to realize what was happening, Urzaia had slammed both Awakened weapons into the side of the Cinderbeast with the full force of his Soulbound powers. The Kameira’s ribs caved in as though they’d been struck by a falling star, and its huge body blasted away from Urzaia. It scraped rows of stone seats away in its flight, finally slamming against the top section of the arena wall in a spray of dark blood.

Seconds after its impact, as the dust billowed up and Urzaia calmly walked over to Calder, the entire half of the arena collapsed completely.

Urzaia said something to Calder and then laughed, but the sound was washed out by the avalanche of crashing stone. Instead of responding, Calder jerked his head and ran for the exits.

As they got closer and the noise died away, Calder shouted back to him. “Urzaia. How would you like a job? I could use a ship’s guard?”

The Woodsman made a show of thinking about it for a few seconds, even as he ran. There was a thin sheen of sweat and blood on his skin, but he wasn’t even close to running out of breath.
Champions are just...unfair.

“Guard is boring,” he said at last. “But I am a very good cook.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

The Bellowing Horror is meant to unnerve the minds of men, for it repeats only the most vile and disturbing bits of our conversation. Yet in the end, the men and I grew fond of the creature, as it caused us no harm and fed on the rats that plagued our vessel.

—From the original Blackwatch
Bestiary of Elders

The Emperor’s armor was white and smooth, so that it looked like Calder’s chest and limbs were protected by giant eggshells. The plates were joined by chain at the joints, and the entire suit was invested to weigh practically nothing, so at times Calder forgot he was wearing it.

He extended his senses down into
The Testament,
steering his ship after the Navigator fleet that carried the army of the Imperialist Guilds. Navigator ships stretched out over the oceans for miles to his left and right, covering the shallow Aion in colored sails and Imperial banners. But every time Calder Read his ship, he had to forcibly ignore his armor. The Emperor had left a mountain of Intent in the suit; this was the same armor he’d worn in the Elder War. As a result, Calder almost lost himself in the armor’s depths each time he Read.

It was an inconvenience, and one that he was quickly growing sick of. But since he suspected the armor was impenetrable, he would manage. He could withstand a little inconvenience for the sake of invincibility.

The armor was one of the treasures he’d taken from the Emperor’s armory, over a week ago now. It was the primary reason that General Teach had allowed him to lead the assault on the Gray Island.

Although “lead” was perhaps too strong of a word.
The Testament
was lagging behind the rest of the fleet as the Consultants’ island loomed in the distance. The Lyathatan drifted along sluggishly beneath him, barely keeping up with the ship instead of pulling it forward.

That was one of Teach’s requirements. She’d made him promise to stay in the back, as far from danger as reasonably possible.

Even if he wasn’t technically in charge of his own mission, at least he
looked
like an Emperor. Between his armor, the Awakened sword on his hip, the golden crown on his head, and the Imperial flag he was flying, he struck an impressive figure.

The Gray Island, on the other hand, wasn’t living up to its name. Rather than the towering wall of fog that he’d seen on his last visit, the island was only a little hazy. That meant something significant, he was sure, but he had no idea what. It could mean that the Consultants had abandoned their headquarters, or that they needed to see clearly to aim their cannons. Maybe they’d decided to surrender.

A harsh cry, like the dying of a violin, sounded from high overhead. A brown lizard twice the size of a horse began to descend on his ship, flapping wings like an oversized bat. Through Kelarac’s mark on his arm, Calder sent his Intent down and into the ship, ordering the Lyathatan to a halt.

Minutes later,
The Testament
finally settled, and the Kameira—a replacement for Teach’s dead Windwatcher—came to land on the deck. Jarelys Teach leaped off its back, saluting when she saw Calder.

Secretly, it alarmed him every time she did that. Some part of him felt like the Emperor was standing just behind him.

“We have a problem,” she said, and immediately Calder’s crew gathered to listen. Foster leaned on a cannon as though he weren’t paying attention, though Andel walked up boldly. Even Petal peeked her head up from below deck, staring from a nest of her frizzy hair.

 
At first, Calder glanced around for Jerri and Urzaia before he remembered the truth. It hurt like a fishbone stuck in his throat.

There were too few of them left.

“The Consultants have a visitor,” Teach said, as she handed the winged lizard’s reins to Andel. “The Regent of the South.”

Calder’s blood chilled. Jorin Maze-walker, who some texts called Curse-breaker, didn’t show up in war stories as often as his companions Estyr Six and Loreli. Instead, he had left his marks in other fields: architecture, exploration, cartography, linguistics, and the advancement of Reading as a discipline. He wasn’t credited with the founding of the Magister’s Guild, but his philosophies were instrumental in its creation.

The legends didn’t say much about his combat potential, but he had lived through the Elder War. He couldn’t be easy to kill. More importantly, he would have been one of the strongest Readers of his day, carrying invested weapons with thousands of years of Intent.

“You saw him from the air?” Calder had been on the Gray Island not long ago, and the place was a maze. If she’d spotted him from the back of her Kameira, she’d gotten lucky.

Teach shook her head. “I only had to get close enough. Tyrfang recognizes its creator.”

Its creator?
That confirmed one of Calder’s worst fears about the man. If Jorin had been the one to Awaken Tyrfang in the first place, he would understand everything about it. He’d have some way of matching Teach in battle. “I guess we should count ourselves lucky it wasn’t Estyr Six.”

Teach neither agreed nor disagreed. “I don’t know Jorin personally, though I’ve met him briefly twice. If he’s not quite Estyr Six or the Emperor, he’s still on their level. I wouldn’t like our odds if we were ambushing him in his sleep, and he’s hardly sleeping.”

Calder’s breathing quickened. Only a moment ago, it had seemed like the ships were barely crawling toward the Gray Island, but now he felt like everyone else in the fleet was speeding toward their doom. “What are our options?”

“We have to go after him immediately,” Teach responded. She reached into a saddlebag, strapped to the side of her mount, and pulled out a black-and-red helmet that matched her armor. As far as he could remember, he’d never seen her with her head covered before. “I can only stall him on my own, but together, we have a chance of removing him.”

“Together? Me and you?” Calder was flattered that she thought him capable of fighting alongside her, but the sudden surge in confidence seemed out of place.

From underneath her newly donned helmet, Teach gave him a look that told him to stop being an idiot. “Not me and you. Me and
her
.”

She pointed behind him.

Without much surprise, Calder turned around to see Bliss standing there. Her Blackwatch coat reached down to the deck, and her pale hair blew behind her in the ocean breeze. She stood perfectly straight, her face serious. “Hello, Calder Marten. You should pay closer attention to your surroundings.”

“Hello, Bliss. I don’t see how that would help.”

The Head of the Blackwatch would likely have spent ten minutes telling him about all the reasons he should pay more attention, but Teach was kind enough to cut her off. “Bliss, can you back me up? If we can remove Jorin immediately, we’ll have practically disarmed the Guild.”

While that wasn’t true from Calder’s perspective, he could see how it might seem so for Teach. The Consultants didn’t have a Guild Head; without Jorin, there was no one else who could fight on the same level as Bliss or the General.

An uncomfortable memory surfaced from a week or two before. Somehow, a Consultant Soulbound and her partner had managed to kill Mekendi Maxeus. He’d been a Guild Head, a powerful Magister, awake and alert. If they could kill him, why couldn’t they do it again?

But Bliss cocked her head, thinking. “Someone has been considerate and removed Bastion’s Veil. If it stays gone, I can release the full extent of my ability. I can remove the island, if you like.”

Calder shivered.

“But if the Veil comes back, they will restrict me almost completely. I still do not think I will be in danger from the ordinary Consultants, but under those conditions, I will not be an opponent fit for Jorin Curse-breaker.”

Andel cleared his throat. “Excuse me. Bastion’s Veil?”

“The wall of mist that’s usually around the island,” Calder replied. He’d learned some things this past few months, after all. He had no idea what the Veil could do, but he at least knew what it was called.

Teach looked troubled, and her Kameira croaked at her from behind. She reached back to calm it, stroking the glittering scales crowning its head. “I was not aware of that. More reason to strike quickly.”

An explosion rang out from the island, followed by a splash next to
The Eternal.
The front of the Navigator fleet had gotten into range of the Consultants’ cannons.

General Teach’s gaze moved to Calder. “You have the crown?”

“Yes,” Calder said, resisting the urge to add
‘ma’am.’

“Try to use it on the Consultants. If it works on them from a distance, then you’ll conquer the island yourself. If Bliss and I can kill Jorin or force him to retreat quickly enough, we’ll force the Architects to surrender on our own.”

“And if they have countermeasures for both?” Calder asked, knowing the answer.

“Then we do it the hard way,” Teach said. She swung up onto the back of her winged Kameira, a legend in crimson-and-black armor. Tyrfang hung behind her in its sheath, radiating deadly Intent.

Bliss joined her a moment later, hopping straight from the deck onto the lizard’s back. “Good-bye, Calder Marten. I will see you again tonight, if we both survive. Perhaps also if we both die, assuming common beliefs about the afterlife are—”

The rushing wind of the Kameira’s takeoff swallowed her last words.

The cannons from the island were firing in earnest now, a distant and irregular drumbeat. No Navigators had returned fire, likely because none of them were within range of a valuable target.

Calder looked at what remained of his crew. Dalton Foster, the gunsmith, sitting on a cannon. Andel Petronus, the quartermaster, standing calmly with his hands behind his back. Petal, the alchemist, quivering with her head peeking up from below.

It was the first time he’d been alone with them in weeks.

“Five years,” he said quietly. “I’ve known some of you for longer, but it’s been five years since we knew I’d end up here. I was hoping that more of us would make it, but...we’re here, and we’re together.” He had more to say, but he concluded with a simple, “Thank you.”

Foster nodded. “Captain.”

Andel bowed. “For better or worse, you’ve made my life much more interesting.”

Petal popped her head up. “I still like it here,” she said.

Something snapped in the air like a leather flag flapping, and Shuffles bowled past Petal and flew up to Calder. Its claws dug into Calder’s shoulder, its tentacles tickled his cheek, and its black eyes scowled. “FOR BETTER OR WORSE,” it shouted.

Calder rubbed its head, though he couldn’t tell if it liked that or hated it. “That was almost heartwarming, coming from you.” With another effort of Intent, Calder once again Read the Lyathatan.

Move,
he ordered.

Even as
The Testament
jerked forward, the Elder’s resentment came through clearly.
The human orders me, he borrows the power of the Great Ones, but he will see. In only ten thousand years, I will rule a piece of this ocean floor, and my domain will be absolute.