“Then kill them.”
Lyrna felt a sudden chill on her scalp, turning to find the windows open, drapery tumbling in wind and rain. She turned back to the old man, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “I wish you had been a better man, Father.”
“A better man would have left no realm for you to inherit, ruined or not.” He smiled at her as the wind built, filling the room, the air cold enough to make her gasp . . .
She woke to find Orena and Murel battling to close the shutter on the window in the face of gale-driven rain, a dim lamp jerking about on the ceiling above. “Sorry, Highness,” Orena said, forcing the shutter in place. “We’d hoped not to wake you.”
Lyrna rose to be sent sprawling against the bulkhead by the pitching deck. “A storm?”
“It started about an hour ago,” Murel said, hunching her shoulders as a thunderclap reverberated through the ship, wincing in fear. “After today I thought I’d never be afraid again. Now this.”
Lyrna put a comforting arm about her shoulders and they sat on the bed, the howl and crash of the storm banishing all chance of sleep. “The crew think you’re touched by their gods, Highness,” Murel whispered. “Calling the shark from the depths. Odonor’s Hand they call you.”
“Udonor,” Lyrna corrected. God of the winds, the greatest of gods. If so, I wish he’d end this bloody storm.
The storm raged all night and for much of the following day, Lyrna venturing from the cabin only once to find the deck repeatedly swept by tall waves and the Shield alone at the wheel, gesturing for her to go back inside although his smile blazed as white as ever through the rain. She provided a welcome distraction for her ladies with a tutorial in the basics of court etiquette, meaningless frippery for the most part but it might offer some uses when they returned to the Realm; people did like their petty rituals. Orena proved the best student, mastering the curtsy and the mysteries of the bow with a fluid grace that made Lyrna suspect she may have found occupation as a dancer in the years before landing her fat but rich husband. Murel, however, quickly grew flustered by her own clumsiness, not aided by the ceaseless pitching of the deck.
“Mother always said there was an invisible rope about my feet,” she grumbled after stumbling through the correct greeting for a foreign ambassador.
The storm abated come evening and they emerged from the cabin to find the Sea Sabre alone on the ocean, save for the shark, its fin tracing a winding course through the waves some distance ahead. Belorath was at the tiller and the Shield at the prow.
“Where is the fleet?” Lyrna asked, moving to his side.
“Heading for the Teeth like us, I hope. Those still afloat that is.” His eyes remained fixed on the shark. “You truly have no notion why that thing does your bidding?”
“None. And I’m not sure it’s my bidding. What it did . . . Animals don’t hate, they just feed. It hates.”
“Or carries the hate of your dead beast charmer.”
“And he seemed such an affable young man.”
The first Meldenean ship came into view an hour later, soon joined by four more, the crews hailing them with cheers and waving sabres, increasing in volume when Lyrna moved to the prow. Udonor’s Hand, she thought, finding the phrase had a certain ring to it. Although she doubted the Aspects would appreciate having it added to her list of queenly titles, if any were still alive to object.
By the time the Teeth came in sight there were over a hundred ships following the Sea Sabre, and perhaps another three hundred at anchor in the shallows to the west of the rocks. The Red Falcon was there, albeit bearing the scars of battle, the clean lines of her hull dark with scorch marks and her figurehead smashed beyond recognition.
The Shield put the Sea Sabre alongside and Ell-Nurin took a boat across to confer.
“No.” Ell-Nestra shook his head, voice firm. “No more delay.”
“More ships arrive by the hour,” Ell-Nurin protested. “We’ll need strength to move against their southern division.”
“Udonor gave it to us last night,” the Shield insisted. “Can you recall a storm of such power sweeping the Erinean at this time of year? He sends us a gift and I’ll not waste it. One more turn of the glass, my lord, then we sail to end this.”
The Serpent’s Tail was well named, a twisting submerged snake of rock extending over twenty miles south of the Teeth, its course laid bare by the succession of wrecked Volarian vessels driven onto it by the storm.
The crew became oddly subdued at the sight, ship after ship blasted by waves, tattered sails tossed by the wind. Lyrna noted the guarded glances they cast in her direction, reverence and no small amount of fear on every face. Udonor’s Hand is not merciful, Lyrna surmised surveying the line of wrecks. For which I am grateful.
“I count over two hundred, my lord,” Belorath reported to Ell-Nestra. “There’ll be more already sunk or smashed to splinters.”
“A battle won without a single sabre bared or arrow loosed,” the Shield mused. “Seems your shark will have to wait a while to feed his hate, Highness.”
A shout came from aloft, the look-out pointing off to the south. The Shield took his spyglass to the prow, scanning the waves for a moment before ordering sails to full and changing course. “Or perhaps not.”
There were some twenty ships moving south at a slow crawl, close together with scant canvas to catch the wind. On seeing the danger they clustered even closer, trimming sails as their ragged crews crowded the decks, weapons ready.
“Don’t these bastards ever give up?” Harvin groaned.
The Sea Sabre overtook the Volarians in short order, circling with the rest of the fleet, edging closer as the mangonels were readied and archers climbed the rigging.
“Reckon we can hit ’em from here,” Harvin surmised, standing at the rail. “Crave the honour of the first throw, Highness.”
“Granted, my lord.”
He grinned, slapping his hands together and stepping forward. The ballista bolt caught him square in the back, punching through the mail shirt as if it were paper. He staggered for a moment, staring at the bolt’s steel head sticking from his chest with raised eyebrows and an odd grin, then falling flat on his face.
“Harvin!” Orena rushed to the body, pulling it over, hands fluttering over his face, desperate pleas coming from her lips in a torrent. “Love, come back to me love, come back to me . . .”
“Bastards!” Iltis lit the hemp and slammed his boot onto the release, running to the rail and shouting into the fireball’s wake. “Don’t you know when to fucking die!?”
Lyrna crouched at Orena’s side as she cradled Harvin’s head in her lap, whispering now. “Come back to me . . .”
Lyrna looked at the former outlaw’s empty eyes, his teeth bared in the same odd grin. He was the most likely of us to die laughing.
She joined Iltis at the rail, watching a hundred fireballs descend on the Volarian ships in an inverted fountain of blazing teardrops. “I seek pardon for my language, Highness,” her Lord Protector said in a soft voice.
Lyrna wrapped herself around his thick arm, hugging the rigid muscle tight, her head resting in his shoulder. The flames grew quickly in the midst of the cluster, a tall column of smoke rising, screams drifting across the water. Soon swimming men came splashing out of the smoke, a hundred or more desperate enough to hope for rescue from their enemy, all destined to perish as soon as they came within bowshot.
I know you’re here, Lyrna thought, scanning the waves. Who will you find to hate now?
A great crash erupted from the burning ships, flaming splinters bursting into the sky as the shark ascended from the inferno. It rose free of the wreckage, twisting in the air, tail whipping upwards before it dived back down into the carnage, jaws wide and hungry.