“Just get him out of my sight,” said the captain. “Let him bother the rest of the good folk and leave us be.”
Two of Captain Wulfden’s officers moved forwards to escort the drunkard away, forcibly if necessary. The men looked loathe to touch the poor fellow, but he didn’t seem to be in any hurry to leave of his own accord.
“I can sail,” he slurred as he was dragged away. “No? How about a bit? A copper?”
“Damned vagrant sailors are everywhere,” Wulfden hissed. He bit his lip, but Daimen had heard the curse and grinned at him.
“Well, it is ya own damned fault, Captain. Ya shut down the largest port in these here Five Kingdoms. Those vagrants got nowhere to go until it opens up for trade again, eh?”
Wulfden shot Daimen an icy glare.
“Right y’are. Damned vagrants all over the fucking place. Quite right.”
The captain muttered something under his breath. “Now, where was I. Oh, yes. I have the authority to execute you, Poole.”
“So ya keep reminding me. Honestly, I think it’s putting a real strain on our relationship, mate.”
Captain Wulfden let slip an ugly smile. “Do not think you are the only traitor we have in the pirate ranks.”
Daimen paused. He didn’t want to play into the captain’s hand, but his curiosity got the better of him. “Who?”
Chapter 35 - Starry Dawn
Elaina looked down at the empty bed roll. All of Bronson’s supplies were still packed away in his sack, and there was no sign of a struggle. He was simply gone, as though he’d woken and walked away without so much as a sound. Not even the watch had heard or seen the big man leave the camp.
“We should go,” Jotin said, chewing on his lip. He’d already made his mouth bloody, but it didn’t seem to stop the fool. “Get back to the ship before any more of us go missing.”
“We are closer to the city than we are to the ship,” Kebble said as he knelt down on the opposite side of the bed roll to Elaina and poked around in the leaf litter. “Very close now.”
“What?” Jotin’s voice had risen to one drop from panic. “How do you know?”
Kebble pointed at a rock to his left. Jotin glanced at the small boulder and then away; the idiot hadn’t even seen the markings on it.
“It’s a fucking rock, Kebble.”
“It is a marker,” Kebble said. “And it says we are within a day’s walk of HwoyonDo. The city should be safer than the forest.” The lie was plain on his face. Whatever waited for them in HwoyonDo was anything but safe. More intriguing to Elaina was how Kebble knew what waited for them.
“Folk say you’re immortal,” she said quietly.
Kebble nodded.
“So if I stab you, you won’t die?”
Kebble smiled. “It is more likely you will miss.”
“I don’t miss.”
“Then try. I would welcome the death. But you would likely trip and miss, or the captain would catch your hand in time, or lightning would rip from the sky and strike you. I assure you, Captain Black, I can be killed. Just nothing and no one has managed it yet. I am cursed with life.”
Elaina picked up a colourful beetle and squeezed it a little, then released it. It flew away on shimmering wings. “Does Keelin believe you?”
“I believe he is starting to.”
Elaina glanced at Keelin, who was pacing back and forth at the edge of the firelight, staring out into the receding darkness. When she looked back, she found Kebble watching her intently.
“Spirits in this place are angry,” Elaina said. “I can feel their rage.”
“Can you?”
“Spend enough time among spirits, you learn to pick up on the way they feel,” she said, thinking of the forests on the Isle of Goats. “Funny thing is, they’re angry at you.”
“They have every right to be. I created them.”
Keelin was still pacing. Jotin was busy crying to his brother. The others in the camp were either trying to get back to sleep or watching the shrinking darkness with nervous head twitches. Kebble smiled at Elaina and nodded.
“You may ask your questions, Captain Black.”
“Just one, really. What the fuck?”
“Spirits gather in places of great pain or joy. Often you may find them at sites of heroic or villainous deeds. Most people cannot see or hear them – they only know that something is there. But the spirits can see us. Some spirits are malevolent, while others are simply playful. The spirits here are definitely more malevolent.”
“I know,” Elaina hissed. “I know all of this. I’ve been seeing the bloody things most of my life. They infest the Isle of Goats and drag the unwary into the forest, and there they keep them. Pretty sure my ma and da see them too, but I ain’t exactly ever discussed it with them. What did you mean when you said you created the spirits here?”
“Exactly what I said. I created them when I brought down the Empire.”
“Pack up,” Keelin growled. “We’re leaving.”
Elaina realised the first rays of sunlight were beginning to peek through the canopy. She knew Keelin was eager to not waste another day like they had searching for the boy, Feather. Bronson was gone, and the sooner they accepted that and moved on, the sooner they would get to HwoyonDo.
Once the camp was packed and the contents of Bronson’s pack divvied out between those that remained, they set off. Kebble led the way, and Elaina pushed past Keelin and Jotin to walk next to the marksman.
“How’d ya do it?” she said as she hacked at a vine stretching out in front of her. She believed Kebble’s wild claim, and her curiosity was driving her to find out how the man had accomplished it. “You some sort of sorcerer? Like a witch?”
“No,” Kebble said with a laugh. “I was born the second son of a patronless scholar who lived in the common section of HwoyonDo. We had next to nothing as we grew up. My father worked for whoever would hire him, most often criminals requesting forgeries. The one thing we did have was access to the great library. All those with a scholarly licence were afforded entrance, and as a scholar’s son, so was I.”
Kebble stopped and brushed some dirt away from a rock embedded in the ground. A smile spread across his face, twisting his moustache into an odd shape.
“Closer than I thought. We may have been able to complete our journey yesterday.” He set off again on a slightly different course, and Elaina hurried to catch up, the others oblivious of the tale he was telling her.
“I learned at a ferocious rate, devouring every book, scroll, and scrap of parchment I could find. I studied astronomy, religion, science, magic. I learned to predict the weather based on signs any fool could see and feel. I learned alchemy, and how to apply it to the arts of healing and destruction both. I learned everything a book could teach me, including the subtleties of court behaviour.
“My reputation grew along with my knowledge, and soon the Neotromo asked me to become one of his advisors.”
“Neotromo?”
“Chief magistrate of arcane studies. A powerful sorcerer, and second in authority to the Emperor himself. Therein lay my first mistake. I wasn’t happy being advisor to the second most powerful man in the Empire. Growing up with nothing makes some men desire little, others it makes desire everything.
“While still working for the Neotromo, I sneaked off to the capital city of Tresingsare, where I worked my way into an audience with the Emperor and revealed just whom I worked for. The Emperor and the Neotromo were ever at odds, and I played them off each other.”