The ship first appeared to them on the morning of their fourth day since departing Isle Uago. It was the first vessel of any kind they’d seen; the Marauders’ Sea was not only tranquil, its horizon was empty.
Captain Tergus didn’t like it.
Their southerly course should have put them flush in the trade routes. Pirates, and the merchant ships they harassed, should have been passing them every hour. The traffic should have been constant and hearty. Instead there was nothing. When the ship appeared in Captain Tergus’s spyglass, he’d looked almost relieved, but still intended to give her a wide berth. They kept an eye on her, and Selena was on the quarterdeck with Helm and Julian when the wiry crewman made a sign with his hand.
“What is he saying?” Selena had asked.
Julian had the glass to his eye. He lowered it and snapped it shut. “Dead ship.”
At twilight, the Black Storm came within half a league of the vessel: a schooner, larger than the Storm by a good forty spans. The sea was no longer calm but wind-tossed; small waves that slapped against the Storm’s hull. The Storm bounced on the choppy waves, yet the schooner sat low and untroubled. Selena watched Julian frown and narrow his eyes. He didn’t like the look of this either and this time Selena couldn’t blame him. There was no movement on deck, no hands, no lights, no lookout on the masthead, no helmsman at the wheel.
“It does look dead,” Selena said. The above-water hull looked sound, though there wasn’t much of it to see. Seven Swords, as proclaimed by the lettering near the prow, looked as though she had taken on cargo, she sat so low. Selena had the impression she looked at a Juskaran sarcophagus in its tomb, instead of a ship at sea. Without having to go aboard, she knew its crew was gone, the ship abandoned.
Ilior was more hopeful. “Perhaps the crew is below deck, playing at cards or dicing.”
“Just letting her drift?” Julian pointed to Seven Swords’s bow. “The anchor’s home.”
Ilior wouldn’t give more than a shrug, but Selena knew Julian was right. The captain turned to Helm. “We sail on.”
“Wait.” Selena grabbed his arm. “Do you hear that?”
The Seven Swords that was now a quarter of a league off and the air had become thick and heavy, promising rain, yet the sky was cloudless. The sound came again, a faint whimpering and muffled words.
“Someone on that ship is calling for help,” Selena said.
“I heard nothing of the kind,” Julian said. “Sounded like a moaning timber. Or a rusted wheel. They squeal like boars if you don’t—”
Again, faintly, and this time words were clear. “Help me, please…”
Julian pressed his lips together.
“Get me aboard,” Selena said.
“Hold up right there,” Julian hissed, and Selena realized they were all speaking in quiet tones and the hair on the back of her neck stood up, as if lightning were about to strike. “It could be an ambush,” he said. “Be smart now.”
The plaintive call for help came again, clearer now that the Storm was almost upon the Seven Swords. The sound cut through the eerie thickness like a hot knife through butter. They all winced at the uncanny loudness of it.
“Keep behind her,” Julian told Helm. “Don’t draw up along broadsides. If it is an ambush, I won’t put the Storm flush with her guns.” He looked to Ilior. “Tell the men to furl the sails.”
Whistle whistled—a low trill—and the captain turned. The boy pointed frantically at the Seven Swords. The schooner was still and the Black Storm came on too fast. Julian swore under his breath.
“Get Svoz and Ilior on the guns. We’re going to broadside her anyway.”
Selena repeated the orders to the sirrak, who complained at the lack of first-hand blood-letting but stomped down to the main deck to man one of the two starboard-side cannons. Ilior took the other.
At the rail of the quarterdeck Julian took his flintlock in hand, and hailed the ship. His voice rang out and Selena felt every single person on the Black Storm recoil at the sound by virtue of the eerie quiet of the Seven Swords.
That’s my imagination, Selena thought, but Helm looked stricken and even Julian’s stony face wore a grimace. He did not hail them a second time.
“Was that wise?” Selena asked.
“Undisciplined men, training their pistols or guns on us, would have flinched and let fly,” Julian said.
“I’m here…” came the voice from inside the ship. “Ah, gods, please. I’m here…”
“I’m going over,” Selena said.
“Don’t…”
“There’s no one aboard but the man calling for help,” Selena said. “Can’t you feel it? An emptiness? I’m going aboard.”
“Alone?” Julian asked. “Send your sirrak. No, don’t,” he amended. “I want him on that gun. I’ll go with you, gods be damned.”
The Black Storm’s bow came up alongside port side the Seven Swords. With the agility of a cat, Julian climbed the Storm’s bowsprit and stepped onto the gunwale of the Swords as if he were stepping over a puddle. He reappeared on the main deck and motioned for Selena to come over but the Storm was too fast, drifting past the Seven Swords.
“Selena?” Julian hissed. He was a black shadow at the bow of the other ship. “Smartly now.”
The Storm’s bow was past the Seven Swords’; the two ships were passing each other, side by side, just as Julian had feared they would. For one agonized moment Selena imagined that cannon blasts would roar, tearing into the Black Storm. Ilior and Svoz were crouched low and tense. But there was nothing but eerie silence broken now and then by the plaintive cry for help that now rang out like a clarion in the stillness.
Selena climbed onto the gunwale. She hesitated, looking down at three spans of cold, black water churning below, and then she jumped. Her foot touched the Sword’s rail. She used it to push off, and landed on the dead ship’s main deck, one knee down to brace her fall.
Julian stood above her and offered a hand.
“The Storm’s drifting past,” she said.
He rubbed his lips. “I noticed that. I trust Helm has enough sense to bring her about, but one can’t be too careful. This is going to hurt, be warned.”
Julian went to the rail and shouted to his men to bring the Storm about and to send Ilior over with the skiff to get them back. Once again, his voice clanged like a bell in an empty cavern. Selena recoiled.
He returned to her side. “My skin is itching.”
“Mine too,” she said. “Let’s get down below.”
“Wait,” Julian said. “Hear that?”
Selena listened. “I hear nothing.”
“Exactly. Our friend has grown silent when he should be louder, now that he knows we’re here.” Julian retrieved his flintlock and held it ready.
They started for the hatch amidships that would lead below, walking with slow, cautious steps. The ship looked sound, but appeared as if it hadn’t sailed in years. Every coil of rope, every cask looked still and untouched, and the deck was clear but for a few patches of dampness here and there. The wood moaned and the sails drooped eerily above them without catching one puff of wind. A fine layer of dust had settled over all. Selena bent and ran her fingers along the planks. They came up coated with something faintly shiny.
“What…?” She peered at her fingers. Residue in a rainbow of hues, all faded as if by the sun, glazed her skin, shining in the twilight. “Not dust. Scales,” she murmured. “These are scales.”
“Seems to be,” Julian said, his voice low. “And here.” He went to one knee and ran his fingers along faint grooves scratched into the deck. Stains that looked dark in the coppery light of the sunset accompanied the scratches, and then he found a small, bloody object. He held it up. “Is that…?”
“A fingernail,” Selena breathed. Her heart clanged in her chest. Julian made a disgusted face and hurled it away.
“The captain’s quarters first,” he whispered, indicating with his pistol the cabin at the stern. “No surprises.”
Selena nodded, though she was eager to get below. Whoever needed help might be dying or already dead. She shivered and followed Julian across the main deck. He pushed open the door with his flintlock. The cabin had small windows at aft, and the setting sun was fore; the room was full of shadows.
“Luxari,” Selena murmured. A small orb of light bloomed in the palm of her hand. Her other hand she kept on her sword. The cabin was small and a cursory glance revealed that it to be empty.
Clothing lay strewn over bunk and chair, and empty bottles of rum rolled at their ankles to the ship’s gentle swaying. Julian kicked aside a man’s breeches that lay in a heap on the floor, and went to the small captain’s desk. A shirt lay across it, cast off. Julian lifted it with the muzzle of his pistol and tossed it aside. The ship’s log was there and he opened it with two fingers, and then wiped his fingers on his coat.
“Bring the light.”
Selena stood beside him as he read the logbook.
“An entry for yesterday. Mundane. But there’s nothing for today. Nothing to indicate what happened.”
Selena glanced around. The cabin’s disarray wasn’t because of a ransacking. There was no sign of struggle, or of a fight being waged and lost.
“If the captain had packed to leave the ship, I can’t imagine what he had taken. It appears as if most of his belongings are still here. He’s just gone.”
“They all are,” Julian said.
“But for the man who cried for help,” Selena said. “Are we done here?”
Julian left the logbook where it lay, and wiped his hand again on his coat.
They picked their way across the deck to the hatch that led down. As night fell, the belowdecks became pitch black. Selena spoke the sacred word again and the orb of light in her hand grew slightly larger. They found the hold at the ship’s bow, stocked full of barrels and crates. A narrow path cut between the stacks of crates and Selena was relieved to hear a soft whimpering sound coming from somewhere inside. Still, she moved slowly, her light orb aloft and her hand gripping her sword. Deep within the bowels of the hold, she found him.
He was young, with pale blond hair like her own, and she sucked in a breath to see he wore the blue and silver overtunic of an Aluren adherent. He lay curled on his side, bound with rope at the wrists. Grime and sweat smudged his face. Blood darkened his overtunic and pooled on the planks beneath him. Selena rushed to kneel beside him.
“It’s all right,” she said softly. “I’ll help you.”
“Careful now,” Julian said from behind her, his pistol trained on the man. “Could be a trap.”
The man turned his face to hers and a wan smile broke out over his lips. “You…A Paladin? The God has heard me. After so long…”
He broke off, his lips peeling back over his teeth in a silent cry. Selena wished they’d had thought to bring a lantern. She brought the orb of light closer, mindful not to burn the man with it, and peered at the wound that spilled his blood.
“Pistol shot,” she said. “Old.” Some of the blood that pooled around the man was clotted and dark, while fresh red leaked from a small round hole in his side. “How long have you been here?’
He tried to speak and she shushed him. “Never mind. Let me heal you.” She held her hand with the light orb up, aligning it with the moon in the sky that she felt but could not see, poured seawater from her ampulla in her other palm and laid it on his wound. “Illuria.”
An orange glow joined the white light of her orb, and then faded away. The man sighed and smiled at her with blood-stained teeth. “Thank you.”
“I can’t heal him completely until I get the ball out,” she told Julian, “but we can get him to the Black Storm.”
Julian didn’t look altogether thrilled with the notion, but knelt on the other side of the man. He exchanged his pistol for a dagger, and cut the man’s ropes. Selena saw the adherent’s wrists were rubbed raw.
“What’s your name?” Selena asked as Julian lifted the man to his feet.
“Niven. Niven Mattias,” he said and winced as Julian slung his arm over his shoulder and hoisted him up. “I’m a Healer.”
“Are you?” Julian asked. “Didn’t notice the hole in your own gut?”
Selena shot him a reproachful glance. “Weaving light can be done with only the sacred word, but healing can’t be done without finding the moon in the sky to channel the power and using seawater,” she said. “His hands were bound, if you hadn’t noticed.”
“He’s right.” Niven smiled wanly. “I feel I am not as strong in the god’s magic as you are, Paladin…?”
“Selena Koren,” she said.
Niven’s eyes flared. “I know you…”
“Come,” Selena said. “Let’s get you out of here.”
“Be careful,” Niven said. “I heard a terrible battle not long ago. Terrible screams…” He shuddered. “Be careful,” he said again. His eyes rolled up in his head and he went limp.
“Brilliant,” Julian muttered, hoisting the man’s dead weight.
Selena held her light orb aloft and led them out of the hold.
Just as they emerged, a signal from Whistle on the Storm, tore the night air. With a grunt of relief, Julian set Niven down and took up his spyglass.
“Another ship,” he said. “Fully rigged but ponderous.”
“Coming this way?”
“Away. Heading south by southwest. If she keeps it up, she’ll head into the Heart Waters…into merkind waters.” He jerked his chin at Niven. “I think we know where his crew went.”
“Pirates?”
“Seems probable.”
“But why would the pirates take the crew and leave all that cargo?”
Julian shrugged. “Pirates need crews. Might be the men were pressed to join.” He smiled ruefully. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
Selena thought that sounded plausible. But it doesn’t explain the eerie feeling we all share, or the ship’s unnatural stillness, or the scales, or the fingernail…
Ilior called from below; the skiff scraped against the side of the Seven Swords.
“You first,” Julian said, and then his face went ashen. He gripped the rail until his knuckles were as pale as his face. “Ah, gods…Do you feel it? A…pulling? I feel like my guts are trying to curl up.”
Selena gripped the rail. Her stomach fluttered, bringing bile to her mouth. “I feel seasick…”
“Seasick,” Julian snorted. “Is this your first voyage? Mine neither. Get in the skiff…if you please.”
Selena glanced down and saw that Ilior stood, scanning the waters, his hand on his sword. She made to climb down when her stomach turned again. The ship seemed to dip down, bow first, but she was unsure if dizziness made her sway, or if the ship was actually moving. And then the ship bucked and erased all doubt.
She and Julian were both forced to grab the rail as the Seven Swords’s nose canted down with a sudden violence. A hissing sound filled the air, followed by chirps and whistles, like those of a dolphin. Selena looked to the dipping bow where something jostled and scratched and thumped against the hull. The odor of decayed flesh permeated the air with a pungent, fishy stench. Arms—more than a dozen, gray and green and bruised—appeared. Skinny arms. Emaciated. They reached for the gunwales and held on with webbed or clawed hands. They screeched with the effort to haul themselves over.
“Bloody bones and spit,” Julian whispered from beside her. “Merkind.”
Selena stared, frozen in shock and fear, and besieged by another roiling in her gut. To see a merkind was a rare thing at all. To see more than one was a phenomenon. Occasionally, sailors claimed sightings, especially if their vessel was in danger, as the merkind were sometimes generous to those they deemed worthy of aid. To those that sailed too deep into the Heart Waters, the merkind were not so kind, but deadly. But benevolent or wrathful, the merkind’s beauty was undeniable, yet those that clambered over the Seven Swords were corrupted and rotting, like corpses brought to life.
The first merman had a tail that was segmented like shrimp, but instead of a sea green color, the skin was blackened in places and sloughing off. The mermaid beside him appeared to be decaying; her long hair had begun to come out in patches and the rubbery skin of her dolphin-like tail was crisscrossed with pale scars. They pulled themselves up the rail with their arms and flopped over the side. Their faces were hideous, with gaping maws and wide, staring eyes that were dead and alit with madness at the same time. They clawed their way over the deck with webbed fingers that dug into the planking, until they bled. The merkind showed no pain, just a frenzied desire for their prey, and more were coming.
“Get in the boat!” Julian screamed and fired his flintlock at the oncoming hoard.
Selena peered down to where Ilior waited with the skiff and gave a cry. The waters churned. Three merkind clambered over the side, their mouths agape and slavering, reaching for the Vai’Ensai.
“Ilior!” Selena reached down for him.
He leapt up and grabbed the accommodation ladder. With his weight suddenly gone, the skiff flipped over, clubbing one merkind hard enough that Selena could hear the sound of its skull caving like the shell of a hardboiled egg. Another merkind made a leaping try for Ilior; its fingers scraped the heel of the Vai’Ensai’s boot. He scrambled over the Seven Swords’ rail and drew his sword.
“Gods,” he breathed. He caught sight of Niven. “Who…?”
From behind, it sounded as if a fisherman had dumped a full net of thumping, flapping catch onto the deck. Selena hefted her own blade and turned to face the enemy. She felt the blood drain from her face. The deck swarmed with rotting merkind.
“Svoz!” she screamed. “To me!”
The sirrak appeared with his customary plume of rancid smoke and in his hulking red form. A morning star with a spiked head the size of a cannonball in his hands. He swung it on its chain, and a smile spread over his blood-colored face. “Yessss…”
Selena watched him swing the ball in a deadly arc, but a scraping sound at her feet drew her attention. She brought her sword down on the webbed hand of the shrimp-tailed merman that reached for Niven, impaling it onto the deck. The merkind hissed and showed her a mouth full of broken and bloody teeth. She kicked him full in the face but the blow did nothing to stop him; she doubted he had even felt it. She kicked again but he reached for her with his other hand. She had the terrible certainty that if he touched her flesh, she would fall ill, perhaps turn as mad and corrupted as these once-beautiful beings were now. Then Julian’s blade came down in a silver blur, and the merkind’s head tumbled at Selena’s feet, washing her boots in blood and another, foul, pus-like ichor.
“Use your magic!” Julian pointed to the deck where the merkind writhed in a mass of rotted limbs and tails. “I’ll cover you!”
Selena looked just in time to see Ilior scoop Niven over his shoulder with one hand and brandish his sword with the other. He leapt atop a barrel lashed to the gunwhale, out of the merkind’s reach for now.
With Ilior and Niven safe, Selena held her hands out, one over the other, a span apart.
“Luxari,” she said. Light, collected from the lanterns on the Storm¸ from the setting sun, from the meager moonlight, coalesced in the space between her hands and was trapped by the water in the air. As soon as the prayer word left her lips a ball of light glowed in her palms. Without hesitation, she sent the orb into the midst of the merkind swarming the deck.
The orb exploded like glass—shards of light sprayed in all directions, and struck the merkind with sizzling bolts. Some writhed in agony, their flesh sloughing off, while others were engulfed in flames that burnt out immediately after. They curled and blackened on the planks, reeking of charred fish. The screams were horrible to hear. Selena’s heart ached for them.
These are not merkind. Not truly. What has happened to them?
Her light globe had killed many and sent those trying to clamber aboard back into the water, screeching and covering their eyes. But a small handful—some with their rotting flesh now burned—came on.
Selena slashed at one merman, slicing his arm off and spraying the air with blackened blood. Ilior bashed another mermaid in the head with the pommel of his great sword when she reached the barrel he stood on. She slumped lifeless to the deck. Julian danced with his scimitars, cutting to ribbons the few merkind left who reached for him, their screams of rage reduced to burbling gasps as they died. But Svoz was terrible to behold.
He chortled with sadistic glee and swung his morningstar over his head before swiping it down, again and again. Merkind bodies exploded in grisly sprays of bone and blood and blubber and scales. Soon the deck was slick with their blood and other, fishy-smelling liquids that looked pale and pus-like in the faint light. In moments, the carnage ended and the only sound was Svoz’s lament that he had nothing left to kill.
Selena lowered her sword. She met Julian’s eye and he shook his head, incredulous.
“The skiff is still here,” Ilior reported from the port rail. “It’s capsized but I think I can turn it.”
“No, Svoz can do it.” Selena scanned the water. “There might be more.”
“Dammit to the bloody Deeps.” Julian watched his Black Storm sail in a messy arc around the Seven Swords. Grunt could just be seen, waving his arms.
“Have they been attacked too?” Selena asked with sudden panic.
“No,” Julian muttered. “They just can’t sail worth a damn without someone relaying the orders.”
“The hazards of keeping a mute crew,” Ilior said with a wry twist to his lips. He hefted Niven more securely onto his shoulder. Julian looked as if he had a ready reply, but said nothing.
Svoz got the skiff righted and the rest of the party climbed in. Ilior laid Niven in the prow before taking an oar with Svoz. Selena sat close to the Healer, relieved to see the stretch of water between them and the Seven Swords grow wider. Quiet had descended again but Selena kept her eyes on the water, as did Julian, who had not sheathed his scimitars.
The Black Storm faced the opposite direction as the Seven Swords now. Ilior and Svoz pulled the skiff up on her port side as Niven lowered the accommodation ladder. Selena reached for it when the waters beneath the skiff began to churn. She fell back, stomach roiling.
“Bloody Deeps,” Julian cursed. His face was ashen and Selena thought hers must look the same.
“This must be my lucky day.” Svoz took his morningstar in hand again.
Selena let out a cry as two merkind sought to climb up the accommodation ladder. She called a small shard of light to each hand and sent them at the two, mindful of hitting the Storm. The daggers of light found the merkind’s backs and burnt holes through their desiccated flesh. They screamed their terrible screams and sank beneath the waves. Still more came.
Svoz braced his immense legs on either side of the skiff. His weapon swept the head of one mermaid off her graying, peeling shoulders but another, this one with the lower body of a shark, leapt from the water, mouth gaping, and struck his exposed midsection. The mermaid’s mouth burrowed into his flesh, and though her own skin hissed and burned and charred off at the touch by Svoz’s heat, she did not stop. Her skinny arms wrapped around him until she was welded to him. A stench of fishy, burnt flesh clouded the skiff and the sirrak’s struggles threatened to capsize the little boat.
Selena watched, stupefied, as another merkind, and another, and another broke the surface. They wrapped their arms around Svoz, and bit deep. He cursed a vile oath and swung his weapon in a wide, erratic arc, nearly swiping Julian’s head from his shoulders. The sirrak lost his balance and fell overboard with a great splash. The merkind swarmed like piranha and the water boiled and steamed as Svoz thrashed and screamed.
“Go! Go! Go!” Julian cried.
Selena scrambled up the ladder as Julian fought the lone merkind that tried to climb over the side. By the time Selena was aboard the Storm, Julian was alone in the skiff and the waters around it were eerily still. Svoz and the merkind were nowhere to be seen.
Whistle threw down a rope to Julian. He tied it to the skiff and then climbed up the side himself.
Ilior had set Niven down on deck and the young man’s eyes fluttered. “I heard screaming. Did they come again? Did they…?”
“They’re gone,” Selena said. “You’re safe.” She looked to the waters. “Svoz…”
“He died fulfilling his duty to protect you,” Ilior said, unable to conceal the tinge of relief in his voice that the sirrak was gone.
Julian sheathed his blades. “We have to get this ship back on course and out of these waters.” He loped up to the quarterdeck, barking orders along the way to his crew that seemed relieved to be told what to do.
The sun slipped below the horizon and the night swept over the sky. The crescent moon hung like a silver smile, disembodied and sinister. Selena had Ilior bring Niven to her cabin, and offered one final prayer of thanks this day that it had no porthole from which to see the Bazira moon.