27 SERPENT

27

SERPENT

Andry

They boarded the trader at a fishing village, this time under Sigil’s advice. She seemed to know everyone Sorasa did not, and passage on a ship bound for Almasad came cheap.

“Another godsdamned boat,” Dom sputtered, staring into the sea below.

After two days on the water, Andry was thanking his lucky stars that he was not plagued with seasickness, doomed to empty his guts over the side of the ship rail as Dom did. The Elder was better today, but still green as his cloak, his infinite focus fixed on the waves lapping against the side of the Larsian galley. The others gave him a wide berth, though Charlon kept offering him wine, which Dom kept refusing. Valtik said a charm over him, which possibly made things worse. Sorasa ignored him entirely, deep in conversation with Sigil at the prow of the ship, the women as starkly different as night and day.

Sigil was broad and tall, her face turned skyward, reveling in the daylight. Not like Sorasa, who was a shadow next to the Temur wolf. Her lips barely moved as she spoke, her face a mask, while Sigil was quick to grin or scowl.

Andry wanted to eavesdrop, if only to pass the time.

Corayne was certainly trying. She stood as close as she dared, halfway down the long, flat deck of the galley, hidden behind a pile of crates netted to the ship.

She smiled when Andry sidled up to her, leaning against the rail.

“Honorable squire, are you joining me to eavesdrop?” she said, nudging him with her elbow.

His arm buzzed at her touch. “I think they’d skin me alive if I tried,” he answered, and he meant it. “What about you? Have you figured it out yet?”

“I’m smart, but I’m not a mind reader, Trelland.” Corayne narrowed her eyes at the prow, her brows furrowed in concentration. “Whatever she promised the bounty hunter must be big. Someone with a higher price than Charlie.”

Charlie.Corayne’s familiarity with the Madrentine fugitive was no surprise. After all, she was more accustomed to criminals than anyone else. And besides, she spent half the night going through the forger’s seals and markers, trying to memorize them for her own use. They’d become quick friends, the fallen priest and the pirate’s daughter.

“Maybe she offered herself?” Andry suggested. “Certainly an assassin has a price on her head.”

Corayne barked a laugh. “I think Sorasa would sell every person on this ship before risking herself.”

Andry grinned. “She’d sell Dom twice,” he said, pleased when Corayne chuckled again. “But not you,” he added, without much thought. It was the truth, after all.

Her smile disappeared as if he’d thrown a bucket of cold water over her. She turned her face into the wind, searching the vast blue horizon. The sun bounced off the waves, dappling her face in shades of gold. Her eyes remained inscrutable, black as pitch, a hole to swallow the world.

“They all hover over me like I’m some kind of child,” she murmured, her fist closing on the rail.

Andry chewed his words. If he could have conjured a cup of tea for Corayne, he would have. Butmint and honey won’t change her circumstance.

“Are they wrong to?” he said carefully, watching her face. Her brow tightened. She didn’t move, but he could tell by the angle of her body that she wanted to touch the sword hidden beneath her cloak. “If you don’t make it to the Spindle, then all this is for nothing.”

Corayne looked to him sharply, her teeth bared. “There are others. I’m not the only Corblood idiot walking the Ward.”

“And where are they?” he prodded, still gentle. Andry Trelland had seen enough spooked horses and hot-blooded squires in the training yard to know how to maintain some semblance of calm. Even if Corayne an-Amarat is more terrifying than either. “You’re the best hope we’ve got. That comes with consequences.”

She huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. “Does one of them have to be a brooding immortal listening to my every heartbeat?” she growled, nodding at Dom only a few yards away.

“If it keeps you alive, yes.” Heat spread across his cheeks, a flush blooming over his brown skin. That was forward, Trelland. “I mean, we need you alive—”

Corayne threw up her hands. “We don’t even know how this works. My blood, the blade. Then what? Wave it around?” She pulled back her cloak for effect, revealing the sheath across her back for a second. Her face spotted with color and, frustrated, she ran a hand through her unbound hair. The black locks curled in the sea air, clinging to her neck.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” he muttered, wrenching his eyes away. “We’ve got Valtik, and Charlon—Charlie—seems to know what he’s talking about too, even if he is a bit young to be a priest and a fugitive—”

She only pushed closer, setting her stance so he was backed against the crates. Andry’s mouth clapped shut.

“You’ve actually seen one, though. You were there. With the Companions.”

Wood pressed into his shoulder blades as warmth spread over his body. No amount of squiring had prepared him for a girl like Corayne. Noble ladies, perhaps, shy behind their hands or scheming in their silks. But not the girl in front of him, with a sword on her back and maps in her pockets, the starless night in her eyes.

“I’m with the Companions now,” he said, trying to change the subject.

She glared up at him, mouth half open. “You were there,” she said again, softer this time.

I don’t want to remember. I see it enough in my nightmares.But her eyes were impossible to deny. He felt his teeth grind together, bone on bone. The creak of wood and rope and lapping waves faded, until the wind on his face turned too hot, and all he could hear were screams. He tried not to hear them, tried to see the time before it all, when the world was different. When he was still a boy.

It was beginning to rain. The clouds pushed down above us. The temple doors were shut, everything quiet. They were all alive.

“I didn’t see it, but I could feel it,” he said, a blackness dropping over his vision as his eyes squeezed shut. There was a cool touch on his hand as Corayne brushed against his palm, her fingers small and deliberate. “Like lightning before it strikes.”

He remembered feeling the hairs on his arms stand up, the vibrations of that place unsettling his deepest core. Like the world was off balance. Her fingers tightened, and he felt it all again.

Andry forced his eyes open, half expecting to see Taristan before him, not the girl who would undo all his evils. There was only Corayne. This close, he could see a dusting of freckles on her nose, the shade of a long-worn tan over her cheeks. She looked like her father and uncle, and also nothing like them at all.

A gull called, breaking his concentration.

His hand twisted out of her grasp. “You think you can find the Spindle?” he said, putting his elbows to the rail. Shutting her out.

She pursed her lips and mirrored his movements, putting space between them. “Ehjer said they were in the Sarim, a coastal current.” Her tone shifted, hardening. It was easy to picture her on the deck of another ship, papers in hand, commanding crew and merchants. “Near Sarian’s Bay, if they were able to make it to Adira. And the monster had devoured sailors of the Golden Fleet.”

Andry sighed, rapping his knuckles against the wood. “How can you narrow that down? Ibal has the largest navy in the world.”

“Divided into fleets. The Crown Fleet patrols the Strait of the Ward and off Almasad, the Jewel Fleet the southern coast, where the gem mines operate. The Storm Fleet hunts raiders as far as the Glorysea. The Golden Fleet defends the Aljer, the Jaws of Ibal.” Her nails drummed the rail. “I’d bet every coin in the realm the Spindle is near there, in the water or close to it.”

The squire didn’t know the Ward as well as a pirate’s daughter, but his teachers had not neglected geography. Ibal was vast, a mighty kingdom of mountains, deserts, rivers, and coastlines, its cities like jewels in a shield of hammered gold. The grand port of Almasad was said to rival Ascal, and its capital, Qaliram, was even more magnificent, a wonder of monuments and palaces along the Ziron. Sacred horse herds moved through the landscape like storm clouds, moving from grassland to desert under the protection of Ibalet laws. There was the Great Sands, a sea of dunes like cresting waves, cut by canyons and salt flats. The countless oases, some large enough to support cities of their own, some little more than a few palm trees. And then the famed Ibalet coast, cliffs and gentle slopes above pale green waters, patrolled by the greatest navy in the realm. The Cors conquered ancient Ibal once, but at great cost, and their kings lived on, second only to the emperors of the north. His heartbeat quickened at the thought of seeing such things, such marvelous places, so far from the land he knew as home.

He shook his head. “That’s still a lot of ground to cover.”

To his surprise, Corayne shrugged. She looked delighted by the challenge, not daunted. “Like you said, we’ve got Valtik and now Charlie. Maybe they have something to say about that. If Taristan was able to track down an old Spindle, why can’t they?”

Andry looked over the experts in question. Both were currently occupied. Charlon crouched in the shadow of the sail, his tongue between his teeth, his eyeglass screwed in, as he painstakingly went over a piece of parchment with quill and ink. Documents of passage for when they arrived in Ibal. He looked like an overlarge toad, sweating in the shade. Surprising no one, Valtik had caught a daggerfish, striped and spiny. She deboned it bloodily on the deck, ignoring the glares of the crew. Most of the fish she ate raw, her smile red as she sang to herself, counting ribs.

Hardly a convincing sight.

The trade ship cut through the water on a sharp wind, prow breaking through undulating waves. Andry had never been out of sight of land before, and he sucked in a gasp of salt air. He expected to feel unnerved by the journey, but only hunger stirred in his belly.

He could feel Corayne’s eyes hard on his face, watching him instead of the sea. “Your mother will be in Aegironos by now,” she said, the wind in her hair again. “The ships bound for Kasa replenish supplies in the Gulf of Farers. Safe waves. A beautiful city.”

He tried to picture it. Tried to see his mother smiling beneath a warmer sun, her skin glowing again, even as she curled in her chair. He knew she wanted this, wanted to see home again, and had for years. She’s getting her wish, he told himself, trying to ease the shame beneath every inch of his body. And she’ll be safe.

“Have you been to the southern continent?” he asked.

Corayne shook her head, her lips in her teeth. “My mother has southern blood and so do I, but I’ve only heard stories of the world, from the people allowed to see it.”

“You’re seeing it now.”

She gave him a withering look. “I don’t think this counts, Trelland.”

“Maybe after.” He shrugged. After seemed so foolish and impossible, far beyond reach. They would probably die trying to save the realm, or in the doom that followed their failure. But the hope of after, distant as it was, felt like a balm on fevered skin. Andry leaned into it, chasing the sensation.

“I can’t exactly be a squire anymore.” Not for a queen trying to kill me. “Before he died, one of the Companions—a knight of Kasa, his name was Okran—he invited me to Benai.” Perhaps my last happy memory, before everything went to ashes. Andry wished he could step back, take Okran’s horse by the reins, drag him away from the temple and his doom. “He promised to show me the land of my mother, and her people.”

A stillness crossed Corayne’s face, only her eyes moving. Andry felt searched. She read him like her maps, connecting one point to another, reaching a conclusion he could not see.

All the same, he saw understanding. Corayne thirsted for the world more than he did. She knew what it was to look to the horizon and want.

“Maybe after,” she murmured. “Your mother can show you herself.”

The hope guttered in his chest, slipping through his fingers. It left behind an ache. Something told him that dream would never come to pass.

Andry did not sleep down below, where the air was tight and the sailors stank, belching and breaking wind all night. Only Charlon and Sigil could bear it, though perhaps the bounty hunter kept close should her fugitive take any opportunity to attempt escape. Even if they were in the middle of the sea. Valtik was gods-knew-where, somehow able to disappear even on a trade galley. Probably hanging from a rope over the side, luring turtles for their shells.

Instead, Andry slept on deck. The ship rocked in an easy lull. He felt himself suspended between sleep and waking, reluctant to dream of the temple, the feel of the sword, and the red, ruined hands on his skin. In his nightmares, the horse faltered. The sword fell. He slipped from the saddle and was eaten, the hope of the realm dying with him. Starlight bled through his eyelids, brighter than he had ever seen. So far from land, from smoke and candlelight, the stars were like needles through the heavens, pinpricks from their realm to the heaven of the gods. He tried to ignore Corayne dozing only a few yards away, half obscured by Domacridhan sitting next to her. She was little more than a lump in her cloak, the sword half hidden beside her, a spit of black hair curling out of her hood.

The first jolt felt like nothing. An errant wave. A gust of wind filling the sail.

Andry opened his eyes to find the sail flat, the sea calm. A trick of sleep, he thought. Like when you think you’re falling. Even Dom didn’t stir, the constant sentinel staring at his boots.

Andry settled back again, warm in his cloak, the salt air cool on his face. I don’t know why people complain about sailing so much. It’s quite pleasant.

The second jolt made the hull creak, the ship tipping beneath Andry’s body. Still gentle, an easy, steady movement. One of the crewmen on watch whispered to another, their Larsian harsh and hissing with confusion. Another looked over the side of the galley, staring into the black waters.

Andry narrowed his eyes as Dom straightened. His white face paled in the dim light; his lips twitched beneath his golden beard. The Elder stared toward the prow, where Sorasa slept upright, her arms folded over her body in a tight embrace.

Something unfurled in the dark, outside the weak spheres of light swaying from the mast, prow, and stern. Andry stared, squinting.

The Elder was on his feet in a second, his voice raised in warning, already lunging.

For once, the immortal was not quick enough.

A muscular arm of green and gray snapped out of the darkness, curling around a sailor’s chest. It was slick and gleaming, reflecting the light like the belly of a slug. The man choked out a wet gasp, the air crushed from his lungs before he went overboard.

Andry blinked.

What an odd dream.

Then the ship heaved, Dom shouted, and another sailor went over the rail, alive enough to scream, his ankles tangled in a meaty, curling vine of wet flesh. The sound of his voice was abruptly cut off the by the slap of the waves as he was pulled under.

Andry tried to stand but was caught in his cloak, his limbs still heavy from sleep. “What is it?” he heard himself rasp.

The lanterns swung with the motion of the ship, out of rhythm with the waves. Something was pushing them, bobbing the galley like a toy.

Corayne blinked, bleary-eyed, as Dom hoisted her to her feet and pressed the Spindleblade into her arms. Her eyes found Andry, the same question on her lips as the ship swayed beneath them.

Her words died with the next member of the crew, a curling tail like a whip wrapping around his throat and yanking him overboard. Andry watched, slack-jawed, as the two-hundred-pound Larsian disappeared into the sea.

“The Spindle,” the squire breathed, feeling terror claw up his throat. Was it here? In the waves beneath them? But there was no telltale brush of lightning, of wrongness. Only the night filling with screams. The Spindle was still far away, but its monsters had spread wide.

Sailors shouted back and forth, springing into action. Pulling ropes, tying off sails. Most grabbed weapons: swords and long, hooked spears better suited to fishing. One shouted into the hold, calling for the captain and the rest of the crew.

Sigil emerged before anyone else could, pushing the fugitive priest along, her face grim. Her ax spun in her free hand.

Andry fought to his feet and rushed to the mast. The Elder backed Corayne against it, his body set broadside to the rail. “I should tie you down,” he said, grimacing at the mainsail.

“Don’t you dare,” she snapped. “I have a vested interest in not drowning.”

The Elder ignored her, running out a length of rope and looping it around her middle. “You’ll only drown if the ship sinks. And if we sink with a sea serpent, you’re as good as dead anyway.”

Her golden face went pale in the lantern light. She didn’t fight when the rope tightened, backing her to the mast. Instead she glanced at Andry. He expected to see the same terror he felt in his heart. But there was only cold resolve in Corayne an-Amarat.

“My blood is as much saltwater as it is Spindle,” she said, grim.

The squire wished he could say the same. Night pressed in from all sides of the ship, the lanterns a weak defense against the beast curling in the water.

“Sea serpent,” Andry managed to breath.

The ship rails bristled with armed sailors, their hooks and short ship swords brandished like needles. They peered at the water, ready for the next strike.

“Better than a kraken,” Valtik singsonged, dancing over the deck with her dirty bare feet. The full, cleaned skeleton of a fish dangled from her belt. “We are not forsaken.”

Sigil scowled. Her ax flashed. “Does she always do that?”

“Unfortunately,” Sorasa answered, stepping into the light of the mast lantern. Her bronze dagger leered. “Well, Witch. Immortal.” She glanced from Valtik to Dom. “Any suggestions?”

The old woman grinned toothily and tied herself in next to Corayne, looping rope over her wrists.

“Survive,” Dom answered, grave.

The assassin’s eyes rolled. “I don’t know which one of you is more useless.”

“Get some more lanterns lit; keep your eyes open,” Sigil called, her voice commanding. Though Andry knew little of the bounty hunter, her presence was familiar and calming, like one of the knights or instructors training him to the sword. She stalked to the rail as she barked orders, her boots hammering the deck. At the prow, the Larsian captain echoed them, his face gray with fear. “Captain Drageda—” she called in sudden warning.

Only to see the serpent’s great head rise up behind him, yellow eyes slitted, the sheen of sharp, white teeth in its jaws. It struck, devouring the captain headfirst before darting back into the safety of the water. Spears glanced off its scaled hide; hooks failed to find purchase. Only Dom’s sword broke the creature’s skin, drawing black blood that splattered the decks.

It rained, dark as oil, down the length of his steel.

“Run out the oars—we need to make for land!” one of the sailors shouted, his panic rising. A few others agreed, dropping their hooks in haste.

Andry gritted his teeth, the newly bought sword heavy at his hip. His hands shook as he drew it. He breathed heavily, trying not to think of the last time he’d raised a sword for battle. “Hold your ground!” he shouted, sounding bolder than he felt.

“Stow the oars—that thing will snap them like matchsticks!” Corayne roared, her voice so strong it caught even the sailors off guard. She strained against the ropes keeping her safe. “Use the sails but protect the masts at all costs!”

The sailors had no idea who Corayne was and were not inclined to obey a teenager on their ship. A few still ran for the hold and the oardeck, their boots sliding over the spray of seawater. It was Charlon who turned them back, blocking the way.

“You heard her,” he said, wagging an ink-stained finger.

Sigil’s eyes flashed, filling with light as lanterns flared all down the galley. “Defend the masts, men,” she snapped, all business.

The bounty hunter in armor, an ax tight in her fist, was more difficult to ignore than Corayne. She formed up first, putting her back to Corayne, letting Dom hold the opposite side. They moved in unison, circling slowly, their eyes on the darkness beyond the ship. Andry fell in without question. This he understood. The squire had trained all his life to fight side by side.

A dark shape crawled overhead and he jumped, startled, raising his sword only to find Sorasa clambering nimbly up the mast. She had a bow over her shoulder, a quiver of arrows dangling precariously from her hip. Her dagger flashed in her teeth, the sail snapping around her as the winds kicked up. She wasn’t bothered, nestling herself into the cross of the mast and yard.

The serpent returned in earnest, still bleeding as it looped over the ship in a graceful, terrible arc. Its eyes blazed, jaws wide as it crashed through the sailors on the opposite rail. Wood splintered and bones broke; hooks tore in vain at thick scales. Dom surged, sword raised with a battle cry of Iona. An arrow flew past him, close enough to ruffle his long hair. It needled into the serpent as it dove back into the water, taking two sailors with it, their weapons abandoned on the deck.

Andry wished for sunrise. Daylight. The blackness pushed in, no matter how many lanterns they lit along the ship. The serpent struck again and again, darting with its tail or diving up and over. The galley listed with each blow, threatening to topple over under the sheer force of the beast. Only the wind saved them, filling the sails with a gale that moved them forward, howling beneath the stars. It blew shudderingly cold.

The sailors dwindled, one by one, abandoning the rail to ring the main mast. The monster hissed at them, coiling once around the prow, threatening to snap it apart. It nearly got an arrow to the eye for the trouble and slipped away as Dom and Sigil charged, their weapons flashing in tandem. Andry followed, his muscles remembering how to fight even if his mind still could not believe what he fought.

The serpent was longer than the ship, thick around as an oak tree, spitting and bleeding and flooding the deck with seawater at every turn. Andry nearly lost his footing, and salt stung his eyes as he swung his sword, the scales passing just out of reach. His vision blurred but he kept his eyes open, narrowed to slits, as the beast wriggled up and over the ship. This time it came within snapping distance of Corayne, its fangs the length of her arm.

Charlie threw crate netting at the beast’s head, grunting as he did so. The serpent seemed to sneer, dodging the ropes, its tail lashing across the deck. Another part of the rail splintered under its force, and waves lapped over the deck, foaming white.

Without thought, Andry made for the gap in the rail, his clothes soaked through. But he never lost his grip on his sword.

A voice screamed his name but he didn’t stop, sliding into place to block the serpent’s retreat. Behind him, there was nothing but open air and the devouring waves.

The serpent fixed him with a glowing, yellow stare, its breath hissing between fangs. Its massive body coiled and turned on the deck, gathering to strike. Andry set his feet, though the deck was slick, his boots useless.

“With me,” he growled under his breath, meeting the horrific yellow gaze.

The ax and arrow struck in unison, the first at the neck, the second through one giant, lamp-like eye. The serpent’s scream was like nothing Andry had ever heard before. It shrieked as it writhed, both a wailing hurricane and an old woman.

Sigil hooted a cry of joy, wrenching her ax from the scales with an arc of black blood. She wasted no time striking again, cutting like a lumberjack hacking at a dead old tree.

Enraged, the serpent lashed with all its strength, its coiling body and tail undulating over the deck, knocking aside sailors and cargo, spilling both into the Long Sea. Andry froze as it whipped toward the mast with enough force to cut it in two.

Dom’s sword fell to the deck, splashing against the flooded planks, as the Elder moved with immortal swiftness, his arms stretched wide. He caught the snapping tail with a grunting roar, his teeth gnashing together as his boots scuffed over the deck. It was enough to save the mast, even as the serpent tightened, wrapping itself around the Ionian prince.

Corayne screamed, fighting against her ropes, reaching weakly for the immortal.

Arrows fell like shooting stars. They needled the serpent as Sorasa leapt to the deck, tossing aside her empty quiver. She danced toward the creature, bypassing every lash of its head. Her dagger cut with abandon, slicing lengthwise, opening a long gash in the monster’s throat.

Still it coiled and pulsed, until only Dom’s face could be seen, his teeth working in what could only be agony. A mortal would already have broken, and Dom was close to breaking.

Andry ran, his sword flashing, the point level with the thickest part of the serpent. He aimed true, missing Dom’s body by inches as he plunged the sword to the hilt, through hard muscle and scale. On the other side, Sigil did the same, her ax working with blinding speed.

The coils loosened a little, the serpent bellowing, its blood pouring over the galley, the deck blacker than the night sky. Andry felt it, hot and gushing, as it spurted around his hands. He didn’t relinquish his grip, grunting as he worked the sword, trying to twist it, inflicting as much damage as possible.

The serpent lost its other eye to Sorasa’s dagger, its wail pitiful and keen. Dom snarled as the tight spirals of the monster fell away. Andry shoved at the scales, pushing them off the immortal, his arms caked in fresh blood.

“Thank you,” he heard the prince murmur, one hand pawing at his shoulder. Sorasa leapt to his side, coaxing the Elder to sit back on the deck.

Blind and torn apart, the serpent curled and shuddered, wailing a death song on the deck of the trader. The surviving sailors jeered, prodding it toward the broken rail. It flinched and slid, slower by the second.

“Get it off the ship,” Corayne called over the noise of the dying monster and the roaring wind. “Before it drags us down with it.”

Charlie braced his back against the meat of the beast, brave enough to push the still-breathing serpent. “A little help, please?” he snapped at the crew.

Together with Sigil, they eased the doomed creature into the sea. As soon as the serpent hit the waves, the wind guttered and died, the sail falling loose.

Andry collapsed to his knees, exhausted and stunned. The blood was still there, staining his clothes up to his waist. He took little notice, his breath coming in short gasps.

“Thank you,” Dom said again, breathless, lying back against the deck.

As soon as he was down, Sorasa stalked to the mast. The assassin loosed Corayne with a few cuts from her dagger. Corayne lunged forward, sliding to Andry’s shoulder, her hands shaking as she looked him over.

“I’m fine,” he murmured, sounding anything but.

Still willfully tied, Valtik cocked her head, leering around at the survivors. “Did anyone manage to grab a tooth?” she said, as if asking for a second mug of ale. “The fang of a serpent is poisoned in truth.”

No one had the strength or will to respond.