That first night on the ocean Lykos and his corsairs set a fire burning in a cauldron, with metal rods resting in the flames. Lykos soon approached Maquin, who was still chained to the oar and bench. Lykos was holding a rod of iron, a swirling design at its tip glowing white hot. With one hand and a knee, Lykos pinned Maquin down and pressed the rod into Maquin’s back, just behind his shoulder. There was a sizzling sound and the sudden smell of burning flesh. Maquin stifled a scream, struggling as pain lanced through him, but he was weak to the point of collapse, and Lykos had an iron strength in his frame.
‘Never doubt that you are mine, old wolf,’ Lykos whispered as he branded Maquin, the blood trickling hot and wet down his back. ‘I have marked you now, as my slave. You belong to me. This mark is part of you now, as am I, until death.’
‘Your death,’ Maquin snarled, jerking violently as Lykos released the pressure from his back.
‘That’s the spirit,’ Lykos laughed and cuffed him across the head.
The next day Maquin was shivering, his body burning. He was still led to his station at the oar, forced to row. The fever took him, giving him wild hallucinations. Gerda’s head on a spike, twisting to look at him, berating him for failing her son. Kastell, his body pale, bloodless, sitting on the chair in the burial chamber beneath Haldis. You failed me, Kastell said to him, and Maquin wept, even as he rowed. He vomited, rowed through it, the stink of it turning his stomach, causing him to vomit once more, but he did not stop rowing. He knew if he faltered, if he stopped, he would be heaved over the ship’s rail. Some days he felt close to embracing that end, felt he had not the strength to pull one more stroke, but something kept him pulling. Jael. The thought of him was a burning coal in his gut, a cleansing pain, a beacon in an otherwise dark, fog-shrouded world. Rage kept him alive through those days, when others all about him surrendered to exhaustion and hopelessness and died. It was a cold white rage, burning, holding the emptiness of submission at bay, forcing a strength into his muscle and sinew that had otherwise long since departed.
Slowly the climate changed. Maquin knew that they must be moving towards autumn, but somehow it did not get colder; the opposite — it felt warmer, the sun brighter, the sea bluer. Some days he would see dolphins swimming parallel to the ship, racing it, sea spray sparkling like gems as they arced out of the water.
Always ahead of him he saw the broad back of Orgull, the benches thinning around him as men died, but Orgull was always there.
Time passed and the heat of Maquin’s anger began to dim, the flame fading; the thought of Jael seemed to lose its power, and a day came when Maquin could not even conjure up the man’s face in his mind. Despair closed in upon him; the knowledge that this was the sum of his existence, to pull an oar for the rest of his life, drained him of will and purpose. The only counter to this was that, slowly, a little each day, he felt his strength returning to him, a new power in his back and arms and grip, a physicality that he thought had deserted him. He welcomed it through the long days, nurtured it, prayed that he would have an opportunity to use it, even if only against Lykos, or any one of his captors. A last burst of defiance before the end came.
The next day, before highsun, Maquin spied a shape on the horizon — first a dark line, rapidly solidifying, growing quickly larger. Land. Rocky coves soon loomed close, waves smashing against high cliffs. The fleet followed the coastline until it reached a bay. Horn blasts echoed on the cliffs that surrounded it. Maquin’s ship moored up to a long quay that stretched out into the water, the other ships in the fleet dropping anchor in deeper waters. It was not long before Maquin and the others were herded from the ship, shuffling down the gangplank and onto a beach of white sand. Maquin and Orgull sat together, no words to say to each other, or no strength to say them.
In time, Lykos’ shieldman with the mangled nose, Deinon, approached and, unshackling Maquin, dragged him to Lykos. The sea shimmered turquoise behind the corsair.
Now is my chance, thought Maquin. His eyes flickered to Deinon, a thick-muscled man, each striated cord defined and shifting under his skin as he moved.
‘Don’t do it,’ Lykos said, a hardness in his voice. ‘It will be the last thing you do.’
Maquin’s fingers twitched but he resisted the urge. Small chance if I took them by surprise, none with them ready.
‘I wanted to talk to you.’
Maquin stared sullenly at the corsair.
‘You are the only survivor from Dun Kellen I took for myself who has survived the voyage. True, I did not claim many — I am a generous man and shared your sword-brothers amongst my crew. But still, for you to survive the journey only to be cut down now would be a shame.’
They stared at each other a while, Lykos crossing his arms, fingers twisting the silver ring about his bicep.
‘I am leaving, almost immediately, and you will be staying here,’ Lykos said.
‘Where is here?’
‘Panos, one of the Three Islands. My home.’
‘And where are you going?’
‘Away. That is not your concern. But what I want to tell you is that I do not want to find you dead when I return. The death wish wars within you, I can see it still. It has not consumed you yet, but hopelessness feeds it. You feel you have nothing left, nothing to live for, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘You are mistaken. Deinon here was in your position once. He earned his freedom.’
‘Really?’ Maquin looked Deinon up and down. ‘Then why is he still here?’
‘I offered him a place as my shieldman. He chose to stay. Others have not — some leave, some stay and work my crew, some are now captains of their own ships.’
‘How?’
‘By fighting for me.’
‘I’ll not be a corsair for you — robbing, burning, murdering.’
‘Corsair is too good for you.’ Lykos snorted. ‘I am not asking anything of you,’ he continued. ‘I am not bargaining or negotiating. I am telling you the facts. One day soon you shall be thrown into a pit. Others will be thrown in also. Only one will come out alive.’ He shrugged. ‘You will be that man, or you will not. It is up to you.’
‘Pit-fighting,’ Maquin said, twisting his lips as if the phrase tasted sour. ‘I’ll not be your slave warrior, spilling others’ blood to earn you gold.’
‘That is up to you,’ Lykos said. He turned to walk away, then paused and looked back over his shoulder. ‘But I saw how you looked at Jael. A rare hatred you have there. I am giving you a chance — admittedly a very small one, but nevertheless it is a chance — to walk away from here, to find Jael and take your vengeance.’
He walked away then, called back as he left.
‘All you have to do is fight — and win.’
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT