Winter's Reach (The Revanche Cycle Book 1) (10 page)

“There was a time,” Basilio Grimaldi said as he trudged down a cramped stone tunnel, “when we didn’t have to hide like rats just to meet.”

His hair, gray and receding, was slicked back in a widow’s peak. A heavy mantle hung across his shoulders, joined with a hammered brass clasp at his shoulder. At his side, Terenzio Ruggeri grunted in agreement. Basilio tried not to wrinkle his nose. The tannery master bathed in cheap perfume, cloyingly sweet, but it didn’t conceal the stink of dung that clung to him like a sheen of sweat.

Beyond a pair of oaken doors, casks as tall as a man filled warehouse racks from floor to vaulted ceiling. A stained ramp rose up to a pair of wooden vats for pressing fresh olive oil. At the heart of the room stood an oval table with nine high-backed chairs. The rest of the guests were already there.

In the old days, under an ice-blue flag, the Council of Nine had been the unofficial rulers of Mirenze. Each man on the Council was handpicked from the city’s elite families, captains of industry and finance. They charted the city’s rise and measured its steps to greatness.

Now the city’s colors were black and gold, and the Council had to meet in a dusty warehouse, far from the eyes of Imperial watchdogs who believed they’d been disbanded long ago.

This is still our city
, Basilio thought, exchanging handshakes and gruff nods as he took his seat at the table.
My city
.

“Let’s get started,” Costantini said. The old man was stringy and lean, like a twist of overcooked beef. “First things first, a bit of unpleasant rumor. Dante Uccello has poked his head out of his hole. Allegedly, he’s up in Winter’s Reach.”

Did Terenzio’s hands tense on the table? Basilio silently noted the man’s reaction.

“Not our problem,” Terenzio said quickly.
Too quickly
, Basilio thought.
Interesting
.

“The treason charges stand,” said another of the Nine.

“Charges,” Costantini said, “we only levied as a make-peace for the Marchetti family.”

“Exactly,” grunted the man across the table from Basilio. “There’s no profit in going after Uccello. If the Marchettis want their revenge so badly, let them hire their own bounty hunters.”

Basilio watched as the table easily came to agreement. He couldn’t resist tweaking the situation a bit, just to see how Terenzio would react.

“We have to remember,” Basilio offered, “that while the Marchetti family is not a part of our…austere gathering, not anymore, they still wield considerable influence in this city. If we don’t make at least a token attempt at capturing Signore Uccello, we could earn their ire.”

“Uccello is—” Terenzio started to say, then paused. The tannery master took a halting breath and tried again. “
If
Uccello is in the Reach and out of hiding, he’s almost certainly found himself a position in the government there. Sending bounty hunters operating under Mirenzei sanction would be a dangerous provocation. That’s reason enough not to get involved.”

Basilio smiled thinly as the table quickly swung back into accord and the issue was set aside. He nodded toward the one empty chair.

“We should discuss our vacancy. Signore Leone was a fine man and representative, but his spirit—Gardener grant him rest—cannot vote. It is high time that our humble council was back to its full strength.”

Terenzio raised his hand. “Before we do, I have one new matter to raise. An opportunity. Half of you gentlemen, like myself, own businesses that require a steady supply of alum in the manufacturing process.”

“And we pay out the damn nose to the Banco Marchetti for the privilege,” one of the Nine grumbled.

Terenzio’s eyes went sharp. “How would you like to break their backs?”

That got everyone’s attention.

“We all know that the Banco Marchetti has a stranglehold on the alum market, thanks to their friends in the Church,” the tannery master said, “but the papal mines aren’t the only source. Look east. The Oerran Caliphate is rich with alum, and they’re eager for Mirenzei silver. I’m launching a new trading company—”

“Hold on,” Costantini said, scowling. “You’re forgetting something, or conveniently leaving it out. The easterners are heathens, which I personally couldn’t give two squirts of rat shit about, but it’s a poison pill. The instant the Banco Marchetti feels like they’re losing market share, Lodovico will pull the same trick his old man did decades ago. He’ll put pressure on the Church, and the next thing you know, we’ll be hearing sermons from every pulpit about the ‘sins of buying pagan alum’ as opposed to the good and faithful kind that says its prayers every night. I don’t care how good a deal the Caliphate can offer us. I’m not fighting the pope.”

A murmur of agreement spread across the table, but Terenzio shut it down with a wave of his hand.

“What if I could guarantee that you won’t have to?” he said.

Costantini slouched back in his chair. “Explain.”

“I have some pieces in play. More than that I can’t share, but I’ll do better than promise a return. I’ll back your stakes. I will cover, personally, out of my family coffers, every last scudo you invest in this project plus a guaranteed five percent return. If anything goes wrong, if the expedition fails for any reason at all, you get your money back plus five percent just for your good faith and friendship. Now what do you say to that?”

What they say
, Basilio thought wryly as a commotion erupted all around the table,
is ‘Take my money, please.’
A sure thing was hard to come by, and the families of the Council were old and honored, but that didn’t always mean wealthy.

He should know. He was blackmailing three of them.

*   *   *

The Grimaldi family crest adorned sandstone gateposts in hammered brass. The crest depicted a dragon rampant, the scaled beast clutching the world in its claw. Basilio gave it a passing glance and a contented smile as his coach rattled through the open iron gate and up the pebbled drive to his countryside villa.

The sweet strains of a violin echoed through the cold halls. Basilio followed the sound, making his way past stone-faced servants in black livery who stood still as statues. The music grew louder as he approached the door to the banquet hall, where the tan marble floor was polished to a mirror sheen.

Aita Grimaldi danced as she played her violin, cradling the delicate instrument in the crook of her arm while she spun across the floor in lazy circles. Her eyes were closed, and a wave of platinum blond hair shone in the light from the chandelier. Basilio leaned against the doorway and crossed his arms, watching.
She looks like an angel
, he thought.
A dreaming angel
.

She played one last, lilting chord, a strain that echoed with loneliness and regret, and ended her song. Basilio uncrossed his arms and clapped his hands slowly. The echoes of his applause rippled across the room. Aita’s eyes snapped open and her brow furrowed.

“A beautiful piece, my dear.”

“I didn’t play it for
you
,” Aita said.

Basilio sighed. “You’re still angry.”

“You say that as if there’s some reason I wouldn’t be. As if there’s some reason I
ever
wouldn’t be.”

“You’re twenty-five, Aita. Your mother and I were married at sixteen. People are starting to talk—”

“Then let them,” Aita said.

“A woman your age should already be married and with children, and Felix Rossini is a perfectly fine match. I’ve met the man. He’s got a good head on his shoulders, and his family’s banking connections will help our business grow.”

“Oh? The business I’m not allowed to have any part of? That business?”

Basilio spread his hands. “Aita, that is not your place. You are a fine, healthy young woman. You should be raising a family, not fooling with wool merchants and accounting ledgers.”

She pointed the tip of her violin bow at him.

“‘Wool.’ Please. I know what we really do for a living, Father. And you know I know it. So let’s not pretend.”

“Then you know why it’s no place for a woman.” His eyes darkened. “My word is final, Aita. You will marry Felix Rossini, you will cement this alliance, and you will learn to be happy about it. All your life I have given you everything, everything you could possibly want. You
will
give me this.”

She replied by cradling her violin, turning her back to him, and playing a new song. A faster piece, almost discordant. Basilio stood in the doorway and listened for a while, waiting to see if she’d turn around. She didn’t.

Hassan the Barber waited for him in the hallway. Frowning, Basilio waved a hand, beckoning him along. He had a sudden distaste for his daughter’s music.

Hassan was tall, falcon-eyed, and dark as chiseled basalt, an exile from the Oerran Caliphate. He’d been a raider once, boss of a bandit gang, until he’d tried to plunder one of the Grimaldi family’s caravans. Basilio made him a better offer. The Mirenzei knew raw talent when he saw it.

“Bad time for bad news?” Hassan’s voice was a basso rumble.

“How long have we worked together? The faster I know about a problem, the faster I can solve it. I want sugarcoatings on my biscotti, not on my information.”

“The Rossini boy is gone.”

“Gone? Gone where? Gone fishing?”

“Gone north,” Hassan said. “He boarded a merchant ship bound for Winter’s Reach. We’re not certain why.”

“With or without that peasant girl he’s been rutting with?”

“Without. She’s still in Mirenze.”

Basilio waved a dismissive hand as they walked.

“He’ll be back, then,” he said. “Just the same, keep an eye on the girl. What was her name?”

“Renata Nicchi.”

“Renata,” Basilio echoed, his lips curling like he’d bitten into a rotten apple. “Gutter trash. He actually thinks he’s going to run away with her. Isn’t that precious?”

“I can solve that problem with one little cut.”

Basilio shook his head. “No. I want the girl alive for now. Alive and under my thumb, she’s leverage. Dead, she’s nothing. Felix is as headstrong and rebellious as my daughter, but there is one crucial difference. I have ways to
hurt
Felix. He’ll do as he’s told, once I’ve explained the facts of life to him.”

“There is something else,” Hassan said. “Confirmation. The Rossinis’ butler is a spy for Lodovico Marchetti. We’ve seen him coming and going from the estate.”

“Vico. There’s one we should have sliced out of the picture years ago. I told the Council, you never kill a man and leave his son alive. A boy with a tombstone for a father grows up wanting one thing and one thing only: blood for blood. I should know.”

“As far as we know, he believes his father’s death was a suicide.”

“And if he ever learns the truth,” Basilio said, “Lodovico Marchetti is going to be a serious problem. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Down in the galley of the
Fairwind Muse
, the cook stood lethargically over a boiling pot, ladling out the last of the ship’s stores to a line of hungry sailors. Felix waited along with them, getting a raised eyebrow when he asked for three servings.

“Not for
me
,” Felix said.

Once he explained where the food was going, the cook sent him on his way with three hunks of boiled beef and three stale fistfuls of hardtack precariously piled on a dented plate. His first stop was back at the helm, where Iona took a serving off his hands.

Felix bit into a chunk of beef, chewing thoughtfully as he went looking for Mari. She wasn’t hard to find, still out on the deck and practicing her fighting forms even as stray snowflakes left wet spatters on her face and patchwork armor. Her only concession to the cold was a heavy woolen cloak with a ragged hem, like something she’d fished from a noblewoman’s trash.

“Bad news,” Felix said. “This is the last shipboard food we’ll get until the return trip. Just think: you’re actually going to have to eat real, hot meals in a genuine inn. Can you endure it?”

“The horror,” Mari deadpanned, sheathing her batons. She took a chunk of beef from Felix’s platter and lifted it to her mouth. She was about to take a bite when a strangled sound turned her head.

A sailor staggered up the gangway from belowdecks, blue-faced and choking. He took three steps and collapsed onto the deck, twitching, white foam leaking from his puffy lips and nose. Mari’s gaze darted to Felix, her eyes hard as stone.

“Did you eat
any
of that?” she snapped. “The food! Did you eat it?”

“Two bites, but what—”

She lunged at him and knocked the platter from his hands. It clanged to the deck, hardtack scattering, as she grabbed Felix by the scruff of the neck and dragged him to the side of the ship. He was still trying to protest when she bent him over the railing and rammed two of her fingers down his throat. His guts lurched and he vomited, spewing what little he’d eaten down into the black waters. She held him there, her grip merciless and hard as iron, until nothing was left in his stomach but a trickle of bile.

He wheezed for breath when she finally pulled her fingers out, and she turned to flick the slimy filth from her hand.

Felix looked up toward the helm and shouted, just in time to see Captain Iona slump against the ship’s wheel. The weight of his corpse spun the wheel hard to starboard and held it there, his arm tangled. The
Fairwind Muse
groaned and keeled hard, sailing straight for the coastline.

“Someone poisoned the ship’s mess,” Felix gasped, his throat burning. “What kind of crazy bastard would—”

“Survive now, talk later.” Mari dropped into a crouch and looked in all directions, as if expecting an attack.

Felix felt icy hands squeezing his heart as a sailor, tossed by the sudden keel and losing his grip, tumbled from the rigging twenty feet above. The man landed hard and cracked his skull open on the icy deck, twitching and releasing his last rattling breath mere feet from where they stood. Shouts rose up from the lower decks, mingled with terrible choking sounds. The crewmen who hadn’t eaten yet were running around in a blind panic, trying to help the fallen.

Then they hit the Jailer’s Teeth.

The ship slammed into the rocks. Timbers buckled and snapped under the force of the waves, and the ocean roared as a hatchway below the waterline caved in. Suddenly Felix was off his feet and sliding, tumbling toward the railing while the
Fairwind Muse
listed violently to one side. Mari caught his hand and pulled him up, both of them barely keeping their footing on the tilting deck.

“The skiffs,” Felix said, pointing. “We’ll get off that way!”

They found Anakoni at the bow, working to loose one of the bound skiffs from its ropes. The long rowboat swayed dangerously off the edge of the ship, high above the water and ice. He waved them over.

“Flywheel’s jammed,” he shouted. “Help me!”

Across the deck, another trio of survivors worked to lower a second skiff. The
Muse
continued its slow list, taking on water and bound for its grave beneath the black ocean. Felix looked up and saw a few men still clinging to the masts, struggling to chop through the sail lines and keep the wind from pushing the ship any farther onto the treacherous rocks. They couldn’t save the
Muse
from going down, but they could stave off its death long enough to get another few survivors off the boat.

Mari and Anakoni gave the ropes one desperate yank, and the flywheel spun free. They watched as the skiff slid down the side of the ship and landed with a splash in the water below. Felix unfurled a rolled-up rope ladder, just long enough to reach the waiting boat.

Werner fought his way up from belowdecks, climbing over corpses and leaning against the tilting walls. He ran to join them, eyes wide with horror.

“Thank the Gardener I was too sick to eat,” he gasped. “It’s madness down there. Half the crew dead or dying.”

Felix clambered down the rope ladder, trying to ignore the ship’s groaning and the splintering cracks of its wooden bones. The skiff wobbled under his feet, but he held on to the ladder and kept the boat from drifting away from the
Muse
. Mari was next, gripping the sides of the rope ladder and half sliding her way down, skinning her palms raw but saving a few precious seconds. One of the other three skiffs had already hit the water, and a couple sailors were paddling toward shore with all their might.

As Anakoni and Werner climbed down to join them, the sea began to boil. Not with heat but with raw movement, as if a fistful of worms had woken up at the bottom of a water glass, churning and straining toward the surface.

The first mate landed in the skiff, and his eyes went wide with terror. “
Elder!
” he screamed up to the other survivors. “
Elder!
Abandon ship
now!
”

Something rumbled up from beneath the waves. It was a sound like nothing Felix had heard before, like a single droning note being played underwater on some massive instrument. Anakoni took up one set of oars and thrust the other at Felix.

“Row, damn you!” Anakoni shouted. “Row or we’re all dead!”

Felix didn’t need the prompting. He shoved the oars into the water and threw his back into it, struggling to keep up with the first mate’s frantic paddling.

Icy water sprayed across Felix’s face as the sea erupted. A black, rubbery tentacle, at least thirty feet long and thick as a tree trunk, soared up from under the waves and lashed at the
Muse
’s railing. More tentacles, more than he could count, bubbled and boiled up to latch onto the dying ship and dig into every seam and broken plank, tugging viciously. One of the men still clinging to the ship’s mast fell free, plummeting down to the water. He surfaced long enough to take a single sputtering breath—and then a tentacle whipped around his head and hauled him under.

One of the skiffs, laden with twelve men and barely floating above the waterline, was a good twenty feet closer to shore. A gasp caught in Felix’s throat as a fat tentacle slashed up from the waves and came down across the middle of the skiff, crushing a sailor’s spine and tearing the boat in half.

“Steer that way!” Felix said. “We can pick up the survivors!”

“They’re already lost,” Anakoni said, shaking his head. “Just keep going for shore.”

In the blink of an eye, Mari drew one of her fighting batons and swung it at his windpipe, stopping a quarter inch from impact. Anakoni flinched.

“We have to
try
,” she said through gritted teeth. “
Steer
.”

Men clung to the wreckage, kicking and batting with their oars at the questing tentacles. Felix immediately recognized Simon. The blond Murgardt was still alive and fighting, clutching a chunk of driftwood and slapping a curling tentacle back down under the water.

“My ankle!” one of the sailors screamed. “It’s got my—” And then he was gone, hauled into the black. Felix’s skiff closed in, passing a struggling man who’d been knocked from the wreckage. Mari and Werner quickly reached over the side and hauled him in. It was Kimo, soaking wet and cold as the grave.

Another sailor went down as the sea sprouted one blubbery black tendril after another. They brought the skiff as close as they dared, and Felix cupped his hands and shouted out.

“Simon! Over here!
Jump!
”

Simon steeled himself and took a deep breath, leaping from the floating wreckage and hurling himself over a tentacle as it whipped furiously at the frigid air. He landed five feet from the skiff, plunging into the water, and swam hard and fast. They dragged him in, resting him on his back inside the rocking boat as he gasped for air.

Out of twelve men, only Kimo and Simon had survived. The rest were lost beneath the waves and the tentacles hammered the floating debris looking for more, trying to sate their endless hunger.

As they rowed for shore, Felix looked back. He wished he hadn’t. Nothing was left of the
Fairwind Muse
but its bow and masthead, slowly dragged inch by inch under the merciless waters. Some sixty feet back, the third skiff followed in their wake, its crew paddling as fast as they could to catch up. The fourth was nowhere to be seen.

The sea boiled around the third skiff, even more ferociously than before. Waves buffeted the craft, and Felix fought to keep their own boat steady. A rumbling sound filled the air, mingled with that distant and horrible trumpeting.

“Something’s coming,” Mari whispered.

Then the sea exploded, and Felix learned what a god’s nightmares looked like.

A beak rose up from the water in a tidal eruption of sea spray and thunder. It was at least fifty feet across, gaping wide and swallowing the third skiff whole. Scab-like barnacles and white fungus covered its cracked chitin. The beak reared up, triumphant, and at its apex it unleashed a deafening, screeching cry to the heavens.

His muscles strained and his breath was raw, but he couldn’t stop rowing. Not now, not with that horror still hunting and hungry.

How much of it is still under the water
, he thought.
Oh Gardener, how big IS it
?

The rocky shoreline was twenty feet away and closing fast. Then fifteen, then ten, and blood roared in Felix’s ears as he shut his eyes and poured his last reserves of strength into paddling, pushing past his breaking point. The skiff bumped against the shore, and Mari put her hands under his arms, dragging him up and away from the boat as Anakoni and Werner did the same for Kimo and Simon.

The shore was a rocky bramble glistening with ice, barren and cold. Fifteen feet inland they all tumbled to the frost, sitting sprawled on the stony ground, watching as the tentacles dragged the last few feet of the
Muse
to its doom. Then the sea was quiet once more, glowing black in the setting sun.

No one said a word. One hundred and twenty-two men had put out to sea on the
Fairwind Muse
. Only six people made it back to shore. A moment of silence felt like the right thing to do.

“When we dropped the skiffs,” Kimo breathed, his voice a whisper, “the Elder thought we were making an offering. We
called
it.”

Anakoni glared at the water. His one good eye narrowed to a razor slit.

“We wouldn’t have had to, if some bastard hadn’t tried to murder us all. Why would he do that?” He looked to Felix, Werner, and Mari, furious. “Was it you? Or you? Nobody had any reason to hurt our ship. The only thing different about this voyage was the three of
you
. One of you is responsible for this!”

“Easy,” Mari said, a gentle edge of warning in her voice.

“Don’t tell me easy! Don’t tell me—” Anakoni froze, pressing his hand to his face, letting out a choking sob. When he spoke again, he’d lost all of his fight. “My captain is dead. My friends are
dead
. I just want to know why.”

“We survived,” Simon said vacantly, giving Felix a lingering and empty-eyed gaze. “That’s the important thing.”

He’s in shock
, Felix thought.
I guess we all are
.

“Anakoni,” Mari said, “how far are we from Winter’s Reach?”

“By foot? A day’s hard hiking, if we’re lucky and find the forest road.”

She nodded over at Kimo, who trembled and stared at the sea, clutching his knees to his chest.

“He’s cold-sick and soaking wet, and Simon is almost as bad. They won’t make it, not like this. We need to build a camp and get a fire started.”

Felix pushed himself to his feet and staggered off into the tree line with the other survivors, looking for a clearing and some tinder to burn. The arctic night was coming fast, and he could feel the cold sinking into his bones.