Kingdom's Vice Series: A Voyage of Vengeance ( #2 2015)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

"Dance on the planks!" one of them yells at us as we stand on the deck, our clothes wet, sticking to our bodies like leeches. Stupid little poncy. If I could introduce him to my friend the fist I would. But I feel de Susa's glass beads watching us.

"Don't do anything stupid," I tell the others, my hand out to form a barrier between us and the crew.

"That's funny," Duhamas chuckles, "considering."

I turn to him, "Considering what?"

"That I was the one who told you that! You're more prone to stupidity than I am!" he counters.

Good point.

"Idiot! I yell back. "They want us to dance on the planks, not dance a dabble of words!"

Wayland's face is blank—confused, a trace of violation in his eyes. The scene is violating him. I flick him a wink. He stares at me as if I've just asked him to offer himself to the crew for dinner. I wink again.

"Come on, fool!" I scold him. "Have you nothing to say?" I motion to Duhamas, "He beat you and belittled you in the hull. Have you nothing to say to that, coward?"

He's fuming. His breath his heavy and ragged. He's going savage—like them.

And then he breaks. Something in him snaps and he is upon Duhamas like a gust of angry wind, rattling the leaves from the trees until its skeleton remains. I fear he may leave Duhamas in a pile of bones.

"Daeras, Duhamas!" I call out to him as he falls to his knees, shielding his face with his arms as Wayland forces the sharp tips of his boots into his side. His armour protected him from the thick of it, but where the soft flesh lay vulnerable—no sheet of iron could protect him.

"Ik lamahr!" he yells back at me, and I see something in the sunlight. Something is weaving in between the webs of his fingers, swimming about him. An aura, as the blind woman said.

"Duhamas, no!" I exclaim, lunging forward, throwing myself between him and Wayland, whose face as turned as bright as beetroot. But I am too late.

I shiver as I hear a deep, menacing growl summon up from behind me. I swallow. I hear the crew's collected gasp of horror. Then I hear de Susa's wicked chuckle—she's amused. I turn and see three pairs of wolf eyes staring at me intently, as if to devour me. But as I shake my fear from my shoulders, I realize that they are looking through me.

"How marvellous!" de Susa exclaims over the excitement. "Three wolves coming to the aide of our prisoners."

I shoot Duhamas a look and hiss, "You summoned them?"

Why couldn't you have done that before?

He looks to the sun. He needed the Light.

Oh.

"What will you make of us?" I demand of de Susa, who stands with her hands buried in her side, sculpting her waist. Her belt is still fixed there, holding many weapons: daggers, fine tipped arrows, a silver longsword for good measure.

She steps forward and I shudder as she rests an eerie hand on my shoulder. "I ought to drop you and your friend off on an abandoned sandbank somewhere and keep this one," she eyes Wayland intently, "for myself. What do you make of that, little one?"

I scowl. Nobody calls me little. "I'm not leaving without my brother."

"Nor I my sister," Duhamas adds quickly, his face fixed on hers. "You have yet to return them to us."

She smiles eagerly and strokes the wooden lines of the ship. "Do you know how many wars I have fought, master Allerian?" she does not let him answer. "Hundreds. And in those hundreds of battles, I won each and every one of them. I like to boast my victories and bury my losses...at the bottom of the sea. I do not intend of making this my first loss. Not today. Not ever.

"I feel no sympathy for you, for your people should know better than meddling in affairs that are not your concern. You harboured a criminal in your silver halls, and for what? What glory was there to be gained by an act of generosity?" she unsheathes her sword and points it pin-slim tip at Wayland's throat. "He was a dead man the moment he fled Katan! The man he killed belonged to a family—he had people who loved him. And now he's dead, because Wayland Renharlow couldn't bear the thought of losing!"

He slaps the blade away. "Do not talk to me of loss! He almost cost me my child, my wife! I did what any husband would have done to save those he loved. And what of him? Did I not do you a mercy for killing him? Do you think I do not know that it was him who cost you your eyes? Your sight? He ordered to have it taken from you the moment you started gathering suspicions, didn't he?"

Her lip trembles and her eyes well.

"Didn't he?" he roars again, this time sending a quake through her. She staggers back and leans on a wooden post to steady herself, her chest heaving with every struggling breath.

"Careful now," she hisses through gritted teeth, "you are entering treacherous territory. Your perils will mount every fear you've ever had, as a child or a man. You will know what pain feels like—real pain. All three of you." She lumps us all together with a wave of her hand.

The wolves are ready to pounce.

"One word from me, and they will set upon you and this little voyage of vengeance you've started will come to an end, de Susa." Duhamas warns as he struggles to his feet. "All I have to do is call them!"

She opens her arms wide, to receive them, "Then by all means, call them to me! I am waiting for them. Death calls upon my ear, slithers through my halls—it sings in the water."

Voices call up from the water as she speaks— beautiful, enchanting voices. Incantations swell in the air, growing by every second that passes.

"The stories you heard were true," de Susa continues, "though it is not me you should fear when it comes to culinary feasts." She peers overboard as I pair of glowing eyes stare back into her glass ones. "They're hungry, and I did promise to feed them if they stayed quiet."

I see a woman's face in the water. She swims about the ship, the end of her long, scaly tail lapping against the side with the oncoming tide.

Flesh-eating mermaids.