Scimitar War (5 page)

“Thank you, Emil,” she said, her heart breaking at the pain she’d caused him. “I’m sorry.”

Camilla turned away again and heard him leave. To her ears, the soft click of the latch was as clear as a hammer pounding a metal spike into her heart. She heaved a breath as the sound of his pulse receded, and her driving hunger eased. Tears still coursed down her cheeks, and she brought the sodden kerchief up to wipe them away. She stopped, and stared.

The embroidered linen was torn and stained with her blood, but the stains were black and the cloth smoldered as if eaten by acid. Bits of crumbling linen fell to the floor as she opened her hands and stared at her palms. Her nails had lacerated her flesh, and the gaping wounds oozed black ichor.

A memory rose in her mind, as clear as crystal: a hand grasping the blade of a dagger thrust into a table and sliding up the blade, black ichor spilling onto the table cloth, hissing and smoking. Hydra’s blood…

“Oh, dear Gods of Light, no!” Camilla cried softly. Even as she stared in terror, the wounds on her hands closed and vanished as if they had never been.

Chapter 3

Decisions

“Eight bells, Cyn,” Feldrin said, ducking his head through the cabin door with an apologetic grin.

“I’m ready,” Cynthia said, laying little Kloe down on their bunk in his swaddling blankets, fed, burped, changed and utterly contented. She brushed his smooth cheek and smiled. Her heart swelled with love for him, but was also heavy with guilt over what it had cost. She turned away before she burst into tears. She didn’t have time for any more tears. She had a job to do.

Cynthia followed Feldrin out of the cabin. Someone would check on Kloe regularly and bring him up on deck for his feedings, but she would not be able to spend any real time with him until the dog watch, eight hours hence. It felt like a lifetime. Feldrin turned into the galley and she made her way onto deck as twenty-four exhausted sailors rose from their makeshift benches and stowed the long sweeps. They smiled at her, knuckling their foreheads in respect and admiration, and mumbling their good mornings and good wishes.

Guilt… How could she ever repay them for their sacrifices?

“Good mornin’, Mistress,” Chula said, his face set in stone as he saluted smartly. The morning watch was his. She could see that the burden of guilt at losing
Peggy’s Dream
still weighed heavily on his broad shoulders, no matter how many times she’d told him that abandoning and burning the ship to save the crew had been the right thing to do. “We be ready for de wind whenever you are.”

“Feldrin mentioned that we were low on water, so I thought I’d conjure a little rain first.” Mouse flew down from somewhere aloft and landed on her shoulder with a yawn. He’d probably been up all night.

“Aye, Mistress,” he said with a rare smile. He shouted orders, and the crew scurried about, closing open hatches, rigging tarps to catch rain, and hauling up empty barrels to fill. Even the off-watches came up on deck bearing buckets, pots, pans and water skins, and readied scrub bushes and soap for cleaning. Their eager faces all looked toward Cynthia; a good rain shower would be a treat.

Cynthia stood by the rail and looked out over the still blue ocean. Taking a deep breath, she coaxed sea and wind, gently urging them to heed her call. Moisture—never hard to come by in this tropical climate—burdened the air, so thick she could taste it. She sent it soaring high aloft, into the cool dust-laden winds. The moisture condensed on the tiny dust particles, the friction from their congress inciting crackles of static in the rigging as clouds formed. In no time, the sky above the ship burgeoned with thick, dark clouds.

“Ready, Chula?”

“Ready, Shambata Daroo!” he shouted, his smile splitting into a grin.

“Okay, then.” She smiled back and nudged the winds inside the clouds, establishing a convective flow that forced more warm air to rise. The moisture-laden air rose until tiny droplets of water condensed and began to fall. As with most things in nature, all it took was a touch to incite a deluge.

Delighted shouts rang out as the first fat drops plopped into the sea around them, leaving brief bubbles behind. More rain fell, and the patter became a hiss, then a roar. Mouse chirped in glee and flew around the deck, rain misting with his passage. Sailors whooped in glee and stripped off their salt-stained clothing. Water splattered onto the tarps and flowed freely along the waxed cloth. Once they were rinsed clean, the rain was directed into buckets, barrels and every conceivable receptacle. Everyone laughed and joked as they washed and drank their fill, wet skin both dark and light side by side, soap changing hands as people scrubbed with abandon.

Cynthia tilted her face to the sky and watched Mouse flying through the rigging, letting the clean water and laughter wash away her worries.

“Very nice!” Feldrin’s booming voice brought her out of her reverie, and she turned to look at him. Her husband was soaked to the skin and grinning, water dripping off his beard and eyebrows, his curly black hair plastered flat. He held up a wedge of scented soap. “Scrub yer back?”

“Maybe later,” she said. “My modesty’s still a little too intact for public bathing.”

“Suit yerself,” he said, handing the soap off to another.

A splash beside the ship drew their attention, and she watched as the concentric ripples radiating out from the point of impact were dampened flat by the rain. Tailwalker surfaced and rose to waist depth to sign, *You made the water from the sky, Seamage Flaxal Brelak?*

*Yes,* she signed back, *for cleaning and swallowing.* Mer didn’t have words for washing or drinking, and certainly didn’t have a term for rain. *We will continue soon, but I will hunt today also. Tell me if you see any large fish.*

*There are many where the weed is thick. We have even seen the great sword noses and tuna that are too large for us to spear.* He indicated the short harpoon that the sailors had fashioned for him and Chaser, and made a sign of gratitude. *Not too big for you, though.*

*No, and a few of them would feed us all for days. Sign to me if you see some near.*

He signed that he would and splashed back down into the water, flipping his tail hard.

“What was that all about?”

“Dinner,” she said with a smile. “How do you feel about tuna or marlin?”

“Right now I’d eat one raw, scales, tail and all, rather than open another barrel of salt pork!”

“Capt’n!” Chula said, saluting with one hand while he adjusted his loincloth with the other. “Mistress, we be full up on de wata barrels, and all hands had a good bath. We be ready to get unda’ way any time.”

“All right, Chula. Just let me change out of these wet things first.”

“You can’t do yer little trick?” Feldrin asked, his brow crinkling.

“Not with fresh water. It only works with…” Looking at her own and Feldrin’s sopping clothes, a thought came to her. She urged the sea around the ship to propel them forward out of the induced shower. Mouse landed on her shoulder, laughing and shaking water from his wings. She held out her hand and said, “Come here.”

“What?” He put his hand in hers dutifully, but looked reluctant when she pulled him to the boarding hatch. “You don’t mean to…”

“Do you want to be dry, or spend half the day in soggy clothes?”

“Uh…I’d like to be dry, but I don’t much fancy goin’ fer a swim, either.”

“Just stand still,” she said, calling to the sea with her mind, “and hold your breath.”

A tendril of water squirmed up the side of the ship and through the boarding hatch, pooling at their feet. She brought it up to envelop them. Mouse yelped in alarm and flew off, and she smiled at Feldrin’s startled look. The seawater mixed with the fresh on their skin, hair and clothes, then she willed it away, pushing the sea back down, urging it to take the last vestiges of moisture with it. When the water slipped back down the side of the hull, they were as dry as toast.

“You never cease to surprise me, Cyn,” Feldrin said with a deep breath, smiling at the laughter and jests from the crew.

“Good to know there’s still a little mystery in our relationship,” she replied. Refreshed by the shower, Cynthia focused on her task. The mer would let her know when a fish suitable for dinner was nearby; until then, she would use her talents to push them ever closer to home. Placing her hands on the rail, she called to the winds and sea, then nodded to Chula.

“Man de braces and tend yer sheets!” he shouted as the canvas cracked and filled, and
Orin’s Pride
surged homeward.

≈

“I don’t see how it would be possible, Paska.” Tipos spoke in their native language to keep the conversation private from the imperials. He toed a bit of metal from the ashes of the burned shipyard building—the head of a chisel, warped and rusted, its wooden handle burned away—picked it up and tossed it into the growing scrap pile. He wondered if Dura was alive, and what she would say about all the ships’ plans and tools, gone forever. “Have you seen the chain and lock they have on
Flothrindel
? And there are two guards on the dock all night. They’d have to be silenced, and quickly—noise would draw more like rotten mangoes draw flies.”

“It would mean killing the guards, that’s for sure,” she said, and he could hear the angry undertone of her words.

“Yes, it would, and that’s why we can’t do it. If we kill soldiers, they’ll come after us for vengeance, and there’re too many for our people to fight.”

“Yes, there are too many. We can’t fight them and we can’t run away, because they have ships and we don’t.” Sighing in frustration, Paska kicked a piece of charred wood out of their way, carefully avoiding the rusted nails sticking out of it.

“That’s exactly right, Paska.” Tipos picked up the head of an awl and grimaced at the pitted steel; it would have to be reforged. He tossed it on the scrap heap.

“Ah!” Paska yelped. Little Koybur giggled, then resumed suckling noisily at Paska’s breast. Tipos looked sidelong at the baby, but even this sight couldn’t rouse him from his depression. He smiled anyway.

“He’s got quite a grip on you.”

“Yes, and he bites like a shark sometimes,” she said with a chuckle, as she kissed her son’s head. Her smile faded as she stared across the water at the graceful smack
Flothrindel
bobbing alongside the shipyard dock. “Which reminds me of that fellow who was killed the other night.” She looked at Tipos and furrowed her brow. “You think there are cannibals still on the island?”

“Maybe, but it doesn’t make sense. Why would a cannibal kill him, then leave the body?” He shook his head. “But I don’t know what else could kill a man like that.”

“Neither do I, but maybe…” She paused and looked grim, biting her lip. “Maybe we could take
Flothrindel
if we made it look like the same killer.”

“There’s still the chain to deal with, and there’s no knowing who has the key to the lock. Besides, they’d still come after us once they found out we were gone, and then they’d think we’d done both killings.” He smiled grimly, and tousled little Koybur’s hair. “No, I don’t see a way to do it.”

“But every day we sit here, more of our people are killed by those flesh-eating bastards. That admiral doesn’t mind sacrificing our people, but he has a fit when one of his own dies.”

Tipos shrugged; there was no easy answer to their dilemma.

≈

Camilla stood in the shadows of the lofting shed’s gutted forge, watching as Paska and Tipos walked away toward the keep. She mulled over their words, wondering if they would actually act on their violent intentions if they had a way to free the
Flothrindel
. The natives were no strangers to killing, but were generally peaceful until they were threatened.

She had come out here to get away from the keep, and to avoid Emil until she could figure out what to do. When she distanced herself from people, the pounding in her head eased, lessening the cacophony of living hearts beating on hour after hour, day after day, pushing precious blood through fragile veins. Soldiers, sailors, natives, friends, strangers, and perhaps even enemies she did not know of; she could feel them all, smell their sweat, sense the rivers of blood flowing through them. She hungered, and the urge to feed was growing.

What am I?
she wondered, though in truth, she knew the answer. Camilla shuddered. During her time as Bloodwind’s captive, her greatest fear had not been the pirate lord himself, but his sorceress, Hydra. Too vivid were the memories of that vile creature’s lust for blood. She could not imagine being such a monster, feeding on humans like a wolf among sheep.

But I saw the demon die
! she thought, remembering the grisly sight of Bloodwind’s pirates hacking it to pieces and casting them into the sea.

Suddenly, her body was wracked with pain, her mind flooded with another vision: blades slashing, blood, then the feeling that she was trapped within a small, stone prison. Camilla gasped and clutched the charred bricks of the forge, her body quaking with vicious tremors.
Not a vision
, she realized, her heart sinking,
but a memory
. After long moments, her shaking stilled and she pulled herself upright.

How had this happened? How had the demon survived, and how had it possessed her? Camilla thought hard, but the memories of her time in the cavern were hazy. Desperate thirst, a crimson glow, water that tasted like the finest wine to ever pass her lips…Then Emil.

Emil…

She could not bear the thought of hurting him, but…
I already have
, she realized. She pictured the anguish in his eyes when she turned her back on him. Every moment she was close to him, every time she felt the gentle touch of his hand, the hunger rose. Initially, she had thought it merely passion, but now she realized it was more, and the thought of giving in to that hunger horrified her. A vision of the soldier’s face filled her mind, lust gleaming in his eyes the moment before she ripped out his throat, then the rushing warmth of his blood, the salty taste as it slid easily down her throat, and the power it gave her…All her life she had been powerless and afraid, but the blood…oh, the blood gave her power.

Something whispered in the back of her mind.
Blood
…
power
…
freedom
…

No
! she insisted.
I don’t want power, and I don’t want blood
. She slumped against the wall and closed her eyes. Hot tears escaped from beneath her lids and tracked down her cheeks. There was no denying what she had become. No matter how hard she tried, someday she wouldn’t be able to hold herself back, and people would die. Who would it be? Emil? Tim? Paska? Little Koybur?