Scimitar Sun (50 page)

“He’s alive,” Camilla managed, stirring herself and forcing her gaze away from Cynthia’s midsection. “If fever doesn’t set in, he’ll make it.”

Cynthia rested a hand on Feldrin’s chest, her eyes questing up and down his supine form. Camilla could see the strain in her friend, the faint quiver in her hand, her stance swaying with fatigue. She had no idea what had befallen the seamage, but she could see that she had erected a wall of stoicism around herself like a suit of armor.

“How are
you
?” she asked, knowing by the woman’s manner that she risked rebuke, but also knowing that Cynthia needed someone to ask that question.

“I’ll live,” she said, turning to regard her friend. “What happened?”

“The emperor’s flagship fired on
Orin’s Pride
. Johansen was killed, and Feldrin and several others were injured.” Camilla reached out to Mouse, and the seasprite landed on her wrist. “Mouse saved Feldrin’s life. Helped him get a tourniquet around his leg before he bled out. Then Edan set fire to the emperor’s flagship.”

That got Cynthia’s attention.

“He
didn’t
…”

“He burned her to the waterline and killed everyone aboard. More than a thousand men, Cyn, and he laughed about it. At least that’s what Horace said.” Camilla’s tone was flat. “Horace knocked him out and chained him in the hold before he could do any more damage. When he came to, Horace told him that if he burned the ship, he’d drown. He’s been quiet since then.”

“And Feldrin?” Cynthia asked, her eyes returning to the sleeping Morrgrey. “Does he know?”

“About the
Clairissa
? No.”

“No, I mean…” she nodded to his amputated leg.

“Dura and Jimijo, the native herbalist, did the surgery. I’ve never seen anyone with hands like that dwarf! She cleaned up the leg as if she was doing carpentry. He came to a bit after, just kind of smiled and said, ‘I suppose that’s why the gods gave me two,’ and went back to sleep.”

Cynthia coughed a bark of tearful laughter and sighed, caressing Feldrin’s face with the back of her hand. “Bloody jokester.” She pulled over a chair and sat down. “I’ll stay with him, Cammy,” she said, turning to her and smiling, tears streaking her cheeks. “Thank you. I want to talk to you about…everything, but not right now.”

“I’ll be here when you need me, Cyn,” she said, resting her hand on Cynthia’s shoulder. Mouse hopped over and sat on the seamage’s shoulder, tucking his head under the crook of her jaw. Camilla turned and walked away. She managed to make it out of the room and close the door before her grief overcame her.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Love and Sorrow

Cynthia woke from a deep sleep to the sensation of Feldrin’s thick fingers running through her hair. She stirred and straightened, plagued by pains from sleeping in the chair, and stretched. Her gut wrenched at the sight of Feldrin’s leg propped up on pillows. Memories returned in an anguished flood, and she felt a dark emptiness centered in her belly.
Her eyes met his and a thousand unspoken words passed between them.

Somehow, he knew. She could see it in his eyes; pain that had nothing to do with his own injury, so much deeper than the loss of a limb.

“G’mornin’, love,” he said, cupping her cheek in one huge hand. “I was a mite worried about ya.”

“Feldrin,” she began, the pain in her own voice speaking volumes. “The baby…our baby…”

“It was the mer did it, wasn’t it?” he asked, a hint of the anger she’d expected edging the weariness in his tone.

“Yes,” she said, closing her eyes and letting the tears flow. “But I don’t know why they didn’t just kill me. I mean…”

“Well, I’ll have to thank ‘em fer that I guess, then, won’t I?”

She looked at him, astounded, unable to put the question to her lips: How could he say such a thing? He answered anyway.

“Love, as much as I wanted our child to be born, as much as I longed to watch that bit of you and me grow up, I love you more. They took our child from us, and I’ll never forgive ‘em for it, but they didn’t take you, and they could have. I don’t know what to make of it, and I intend to find out why, but fer right now, I’ve got ya back, and that’s enough.”

She stared at him for a moment, tears running down her face, and she could only think one thing: She did not deserve this man. He had given her his all and she had returned nothing, yet still he loved her.

“Marry me,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “Marry me right now. I don’t want anything more to do with the mer. They can rot in all Nine Hells for all I care. All I want is you, Feldrin Brelak. I want to wake up next to you every morning for the rest of my life, wherever you go.”

He cupped her face in his huge hands and smiled at her, that incongruously boyish smile of his. “Aye, lass. Aye…”

And that was all she wanted to hear.

≈

Sleep fled Sam’s mind, replaced by a wave of sheer terror.

She didn’t know what had woken her, but she knew — absolutely
knew
 — that something was watching her.

Momentarily frozen by her horror, she realized that the usual sounds of the jungle were absent; there were no bugs buzzing, no nocturnal animals skittering through the brush. But she heard…something, a heavy, wet sound without a steady cadence, as if many large animals were breathing at the same time. Yes! That was it! And they were all around her.

She let one eye open a tiny crack. The fire had died to a low bed of coals, and her sight slowly adjusted, In the embers’ glow, she could see their eyes. Dozens of them, just out of the light, watching her every breath.

She flexed her hands minutely and felt something hard and cold in her left palm. She longed for the feel of the hilt of her cutlass, but instead identified the head of the marlinspike she had used to cauterize her leg. She tightened her grip on the foot-long iron spike and stilled her mind. She had not bothered to clothe herself when she came ashore, more concerned with tending her wound than any inane idea of modesty. Her cutlass was with her clothes, beside the barrel just beyond her feet. If she moved quickly she could get it, but to what end? Whatever they were, if there were dozens of them, she had little chance of defeating them all, though she might fight her way free to the
Manta
.

The thought gave her confidence; however ridiculous, she had a plan.

Then one of them moved, a foot rustling in the bed of leaves under the banyan tree, and she knew that if she did not act now, she would die.

The next footfall was right beside her and she jerked away reflexively. The impact of something heavy fell where her head had been. She rolled and reached for her cutlass but her attacker was faster; a foot came down on the sheathed blade, pinning it to the sand. A hand grasped her hair, and her head was wrenched back far enough that she was looking right up at him in the fire’s dying light.

He was huge, as dark as the night and festooned with raised scars and bits of bone that pierced the skin of his thighs, chest, neck, arms and face. A necklace of finger bones and teeth rattled when he moved, and the realization that the bones were human gripped Sam like a cold hand on her neck. Her attacker grinned down at her, his dark lips pulling back from teeth filed to sharp points, looking for all the world like the maw of a shark. He drew back his other hand, and she saw the two-foot hardwood club studded with sharpened obsidian. One blow from that would take her head right off her shoulders.

She reacted without thought, driving up her free hand, plunging the tip of the marlinspike into him just below the sternum. His triumphant grin vanished and the gruesome club fell from his nerveless fingers. As he fell backward, the bloody marlinspike slipped from its warm sheath, freeing a torrent of blood that drenched her hand.

Sam surged to her feet, jerking the cutlass free from its scabbard and sweeping it in a broad arc, the bloody marlinspike still in her left hand. The others had not entered the meager sphere of light offered by the bed of coals. She turned a full circle, glaring at the glowing motes of their eyes. There were too many of them; there was no way out. Whichever way she turned, eyes stared at her from the darkness.

Why haven’t they shot me?
she thought, knowing that the cannibalistic tribes of the southern Shattered Isles used poison darts to subdue their prey. Here she was, an easy target, and they had not fired.

A low murmur in an incomprehensible tongue whispered through the jungle around her, the voices hushed, tremulous, frightened.

Frightened of me?
she thought, wondering how she could possibly instill fear in anyone, standing naked in the ruddy firelight, even if she did have weapons. What in her could they find alarming? She glanced down at herself and caught her breath; the dabs and strokes of resin that she’d applied on her wounds had darkened and shone against her skin like streaks of blood. A gust rattled the limbs of the giant banyan over her head and a thought surged into her mind as if gifted from the gods.

She kicked the pot of resin into the dying fire and the volatile concoction burst into flames. She thrust her bloody hand into the air as the flames illuminated her, and she shouted, “I am the Daughter of Bloodwind!”

Murmurs broke out around her. The watchers’ faces were suddenly illuminated by the fire before their arms raised to shield their eyes. White bone ornaments shone against their dark skin, the even whiter irises of their eyes glaring stark against their faces. The murmurs subsided with the flames, and the crowd of cannibals — young and old, gaunt and round, tall and short — edged from their jungle hiding places. All were armed with obsidian knives and clubs, and festooned with the ornamentation of their past meals. Skulls and jawbones hung from leather thongs at their waists. Finger bones and vertebrae clattered around necks and wrists. Everywhere they were pierced with shards of white, through ears, brows, lips, breasts and the men’s phalluses.

An older male stepped forward, a curved wedge of serrated obsidian in his gnarled old fist. He stood over the man she’d killed, staring for a moment before bringing the dagger down in a single deft stroke, opening the fallen man like a gutted fish.

Sam stared in horror as he thrust his other hand into the pulsing viscera, withdrawing the man’s heart; another deft stroke freed it from its grisly home. He held the quivering organ up into the light, extending it out to her like an offering, but she could only stare at him. Then he brought the heart to his mouth and plunged his sharpened teeth into it, tearing off a bite of the still-warm flesh. Sam gagged, watching him swallow. Gore dripped from his chin. She stared in shock as he held the bloody organ out to her once more.

“Caratha!” he said, and she knew exactly what the word meant.

And she knew what she had to do, if she hoped to survive.

Sam dropped the marlinspike into the sand beside the fire, reached out and took the bloody piece of meat from his hand. Staring into the old man’s eyes, she brought the twitching mass to her mouth and sank her teeth into it, ripping off a chunk. She swallowed forcefully, then her eyes widened at the most astonishing thing: it had tasted good, like a rare piece of beef, warm and tender…

Oh, gods of the Nine Hells, what have I become?
She let the piece of flesh drop from her hand.

The throng of cannibals shouted to the starry sky, throwing wood onto the fire and shrieking their elation, for they knew what she was.

She was one of
them
.

≈

Cynthia Flaxal and Feldrin Brelak stood upon the afterdeck of
Peggy’s Dream
, their backs to the taffrail. Cynthia wore a sea-blue sarong and her hair flowed over her shoulders. She glanced at Feldrin and thought that he had never looked so handsome, in his formal dark blue merchant captain’s coat with gold braids on his broad shoulders. One polished boot and one teak peg with a four-pointed bronze cap peeked from beneath the long navy trousers. She clasped his hand even more tightly, though they had hardly let go of one another for the last three days. They had debated the wisdom of holding the ceremony so soon after the horrific events, but the healer that Chula brought back from Vulture Island had mended Feldrin’s leg sufficiently that he could be fitted with the peg, and neither of them wanted to wait another day.

Chula stood before them as acting ship’s captain, fidgeting in a dark blue jacket of his own. Camilla had even coaxed him into wearing trousers, which Paska had said made him look silly. Chula hadn’t cared; he’d said he would have worn a coat of sea drake scales had he been told it was necessary for
this
occasion. Camilla stood next to Cynthia as her maid of honor. Beside her was Count Norris, who would leave for Tsing on
Peggy’s Dream
the next morning, to explain to the emperor the unbelievable chain of events that had led to the loss of the flagship
Clairissa,
and the warship
Fire Drake
. Tim would go, too, and Camilla would accompany them as Cynthia’s formal representative.

The crowd filled the deck of the schooner and spilled out onto the stone pier; all their friends, every soul on the island, was attending the wedding, save for one, who was still chained in the hold of
Orin’s Pride
. Cynthia’s quick twinge of guilt was soon forgotten as the ceremony began.

“We’re all gatha’ed here,” Chula began, his pearly teeth flashing, “to join togeda dis man and dis woman, who have been carryin’ on as man an’ wife fer near two yeahs anyway,” the crowd of sailors, natives, and imperial guests laughed raucously, “in a state of matrimony unda Odea’s eyes.”

Cynthia barely heard Chula’s words, so caught up was she gazing at her husband-to-be, and only when it was time for her to recite her vows was she able to focus. They exchanged their gold wedding bands, presented to them by a very formally dressed Mouse, who beamed as if he would burst right out of his gossamer-crystal wings.