Sea of Death: Blade of the Flame - Book 3 (42 page)

Ghaji understood now why Yvka had been so reluctant to talk with him the last few days, and why she’d seemed to be hiding something more important than usual. On one level he was relieved
to know the truth, and he was pleased that she’d finally told him something of her life working for the Shadow Network. But he also feared the implications of what she intended to do.

“So just how tight a rein will these Hierarchs wish to keep on you? And what will this mean for us?”

“It will mean the end of my freedom, at least, the kind I enjoy now. As for you and me …” She looked away, tears forming in the corner of her soulful eyes. “The Hierarchs are unhappy enough that I have friends outside the Network as it is. Once I start working for them as a dragonmarked operative … I just don’t know.”

There were so many things Ghaji wanted to say to Yvka. In the end, too many. Instead he took her in his arms and held her tight. Holding eventually led to kissing, and kissing in turn led to other things, and for a time the two lovers forgot their troubles as they lost themselves in each other.

And the
Turnabout
sailed on, slicing through the waves like a finely honed sword as the elemental galleon ran full out for Regalport.

M
oonlight painted the water lapping at Regalport’s central dock a gleaming silver. Nathifa thought of Diran Bastiaan and his companions—who surely were on their way to Greentarn even now—and she hoped the reflected moonlight wasn’t an omen of ill fortune. The sorceress told herself to forget such foolish thoughts and have faith in the machinations of her Queen. Even if Bastiaan and the others managed to arrive this night, there was nothing they could do to stop her. Failure was impossible.

Still, the water’s silver glimmer seemed to say otherwise.

Nathifa stood on the dock next to where the
Zephyr
was berthed. With Skarm left behind on Trebaz Sinara and most likely dead, Haaken had taken over piloting the elemental sloop. Since the spells that allowed one to activate and control the vessel’s wind elemental were built into the pilot’s chair, no special skill with magic was necessary. In his previous life as commander of the Coldhearts, Haaken had captained a ship called the
Maelstrom
, and he proved quite adept at piloting the
Zephyr
, so much so that Nathifa had no regrets over abandoning Skarm. In fact, it was something of a relief to be rid of the bumbling fool.

They’d approached Regalport at dusk, but the bay had been cluttered with fishing boats, pleasure craft, and trading vessels,
and night had fallen by the time they’d maneuvered through the maze of ships and managed to reach the central dock. No berths were available, so Haaken jumped over the side, took shark form, located a small sail boat and bit through the mooring line. He gave the vessel a shove, and the boat drifted away from the dock, making room for the
Zephyr
.

Once the sloop had taken the sail boat’s place, Makala stepped onto the dock and tied the
Zephyr’s
lines to rusted iron cleats. Just as she finished, there came the sound of boots pounding on wood as two men ran down the dock toward them, swords drawn.

“Here now! What do you think you’re doing?” one of the men shouted.

Guards, Nathifa thought. What a nuisance.

“Slay them,” she told Makala.

Grinning, the vampire stepped forward to meet the guards’ advance. She backhanded one man, sending him into the water for Haaken to deal with. She grabbed hold of the other by his throat, slammed him down onto the dock, and fell upon him like a starving animal. Moments later, both guards were dead, their bodies tossed into the sea.

Nathifa had kept watch for other guards while her servants dispatched the men, but she’d sensed none. Neverthless, she ordered Makala and Haaken to perform a quick search of the docks and slay any other guards they might find. A short while later, the vampire and the wereshark returned to the
Zephyr
, the blood covering their mouths and hands telling Nathifa that the docks were now clear for them to go to work.

Haaken and Makala brought up the statue of Nerthatch from the
Zephyr
’s hold. Centuries ago, the evil priest had attempted to raise the bodies of those who’d lost their lives in the unforgiving waters of the Gulf of Ingjald to create an undead army. This night, Nathifa would use the priest’s petrified form to raise something entirely different—and far more deadly—from the frigid depths of the Lhazaar.

Makala had hold of the top half of Nerthatch’s stone body, and she carried it with ease. Haaken gripped the lower half, but as he was
in human form, he was having a harder time of bearing his share of the statue’s weight. Protruding from the statue’s chest was the hilt of a silver dagger. Both Makala and Haaken were most careful to avoid touching it. It took several minutes for the two of them to get the statue onto the dock and positioned facing seaward, as Nathifa wished.

Once the statue was in place, Haaken said, “You still haven’t told us what we’re going to do tonight. But whatever it is, wouldn’t it make more sense to do it out in the bay aboard the
Zephyr?
That way we’d be certain no one could interfere before we were finished.”

“Mere servants such as yourselves could never appreciate the full majesty of Vol’s grand design,” Nathifa said. “Suffice it to say that the mystic rite we are going to conduct needs to be performed on a passageway between land and sea.”

Haaken continued to look her with a blank expression on his face.

“A passageway such as this dock,” Nathifa added.

Haaken grinned as his face lit up with comprehension.

Nathifa sighed. If the imbecile wasn’t so useful when in wereshark form, she might’ve slain him on the spot for his stupidity. But no, as satisfying as it would be, she couldn’t harm the idiot. Haaken Sprull had a very important role to play in what was about to occur.

“I’ve never been to Regalport,” Makala said. “It’s impressive.” The vampire had turned away from Nathifa and Haaken and now stood gazing shoreward.

Nathifa had been too caught up in the excitement of knowing that everything she had sacrificed so much for was finally on the verge of being fulfilled to pay much attention as they’d approached Regalport. But now she turned and for the first time took a good look at the city that was known as the Jewel of the Principalities.

Nathifa and her brothers had traveled here once, over a century ago. Regalport had been a major city even then, one that both Kolbyr and Perhata had attempted in their own small, inadequate ways to emulate when they’d founded the cities that bore their names. But Regalport had grown a great deal since Nathifa’s breathing days. Music and laughter drifted out from numerous dockside taverns, and
everbright lanterns dotted the city like a field of stars that had fallen from the heavens. There were so many buildings that the cityscape resembled a mountain range silhouetted against the night sky, and Nathifa was surprised to find herself feeling a twinge of homesickness for her lair in the Hoarfrost Mountains. She’d thought herself beyond such emotions.

Regalport was full to bursting with life, and Nathifa could sense its energy, almost see it shining in the darkness like a miniature sun, warm and glowing and above all,
alive
. For an instant she questioned what she had come here to do. What purpose would destroying this life serve? How would it grant her desire for vengeance against her brother Kolbyr, dead now for a hundred years? How long had it taken for Regalport to become the great city it was now? How many men and women had worked to make it so? For the first time in her long life, Nathifa realized how easy destruction was and how arduous the process of creation, how fragile the result. Destruction was the act of a moment. Simple, mindless, pointless. But creation was complex, thoughtful, and shaped toward an ultimate goal: to make meaning. Destruction was, in the most profound sense, meaningless.

“Don’t tell me that after everything we’ve been through you’re losing your nerve.”

Makala’s words startled Nathifa out of her thoughts, and the lich glared at the vampire with her sole remaining eye. “Stand guard while I prepare the ritual. Once I have begun, I must not be interrupted. Kill anyone who approaches.” Without waiting for Makala to respond, Nathifa turned to Haaken Sprull. “Stand behind the statue of Nerthatch and place your hands upon the shoulders. Once you’ve done that, transform into your hybrid form. I shall begin my spell shortly afterward.”

The sea raider looked skeptically at the sorceress. “That’s all? I just have to … stand there?”

Nathifa allowed herself a slight smile. “Your role is a bit more complicated than that, but you are essentially correct. Now do it.”

Haaken gave Makala a look that said he was beginning to doubt their mistress’s sanity, but he did at Nathifa commanded. He stepped behind the statue of the priest, placed his hands about the
stone shoulders, and shifted to his transitional form of half man, half shark.

Nathifa then reached inside her dark substance and brought forth the dragonwand. She had carried the Amahau inside her during the entire journey from Trebaz Sinara, the artifact full to bursting with the mystic power she had drained from Paganus’s hoard. Having that much magical force contained inside her had been uncomfortable, and she felt relieved that the dragonwand was no longer housed within her darkness. The Amahau fairly hummed, so full of power was it, but Nathifa knew that the dragonwand could’ve held even more energy. If only she’d had more time in the crypt. But she hadn’t, so however much power she’d managed to take would have to serve. She only hoped it would prove sufficient.

The lich leveled the dragonwand at Haaken and concentrated on releasing the Amahau’s stored energy. A bolt of crackling energy surged forth from the mouth of the dragonhead at the tip of the wand, lanced through the air, and struck the wereshark just below the point where his dorsal fin emerged from his back. Haaken bellowed in pain, muscles spasming as mystic power filled his being. He thrashed back and forth like a captive beast trying to escape a trap, but he was unable to remove his clawed hands from the statue’s shoulders. His flesh was bound to the stone now, and he would not be able to let go until the enchantment was ended. Nathifa continued releasing magical energy into Haaken’s body as she at last began chanting a spell that she’d learned a century ago.

The sorceress sensed the dark power contained within the statue of Nerthatch begin to respond to the magical force flowing into it through Haaken’s body. Then, though Nathifa couldn’t see it from where she stood, she knew the statue’s stone mouth opened to emit a soundless cry, one that not even she could not hear. But the summons wasn’t intended for her.

Several moments passed in this manner before they heard the sound of roiling water, as if something large were surging toward the dock at incredible speed. A few seconds later a pair of gray-skinned hands, fingers tipped by black claws, reached up over the dock’s edge, took hold, and a man-shark pulled itself out of the water. It was
followed by a second, and then a third. The weresharks regarded the bizarre scene before them for a moment and then, as if obeying orders only they could hear, the three aquatic lycanthropes stalked past and lumbered down the dock toward shore.

Toward Regalport.

Jahnu followed the flow of people out of the tavern, his wife at his side, her hand resting in the crook of arm.

“Did you enjoy the bard, my love?” Dirella asked.

Once outside, the tavern-goers began to head in different directions, strolling slowly in pairs or groups of three and four, enjoying the night air. It was somewhat chilly for a walk, Jahnu thought, but the buildings, two and three-stories, made an effective windbreak here. Plus he and his wife were hardy Lhazaarites who knew to dress for the weather in heavy clothing and fur cloaks.

Jahnu turned left and Dirella allowed herself to be led. She was a very independent person. Her family owned several dockside warehouses, and though it pleased her to defer to her husband at times, there was never any doubt between them as to who was the more dominant in their marriage.