Storm of Sharks (31 page)

‘Not true, Hector, as well you
know,’ said the duke with disdain. ‘Word reached Shannon before your Ugri
thugs seized us: Drew’s alive, isn’t he?’

Hector struggled to hide his annoyance with
Manfred.

‘Indeed, Drew lives. But what of it?
He provided us with hope when the council was formed, but that didn’t last long.
Lyssia’s a different world from the one that Drew’s light briefly flickered
in. If he has returned and is prepared to join me, for the good of all the Seven Realms,
then this is great news for all.’

‘And if he isn’t?’ asked
Manfred. ‘If he sees you for what you are? A traitor?’

Hector sneered at the Staglord. ‘If Drew
cannot work with me … then he is against me. If it came to that, none would be
more saddened than I. I loved Drew. But what allies – or hope – does
Drew still truly have? His bridges have crumbled; his friends are all but dead. He needs
me a fine sight more than I need him, Manfred. Look around you: where is your saviour of
the Seven Realms when his people need him?’

Hector’s head twitched to one side as
Amelie’s legs buckled at the comment, his words striking her like a physical blow.
Ringlin stepped forward and caught her before she fell, Ibal stepping in to assist
him.

‘I’m sorry, Your Majesty,’
said Hector. ‘Truly I am. Drew was the dearest friend I’ve ever known. But
times have changed, as have the stakes.’

‘You’re a monster!’
Amelie, held up by the Boarguard, cried out with a sob.

‘I’m a servant of
Lyssia.’

‘You serve yourself,’ Manfred
shot back.

Hector ignored the duke. ‘With the
last of the Grey Wolves gone, Lyssia needs someone to step into the vacuum. There are
thrones that need filling,
throughout
the Seven Realms.’

His eyes settled on Manfred, and a knowing
smile spread across Hector’s pale, sunken face.

‘What news from Stormdale?’
whispered Manfred, his fierce look replaced with one of hope in an instant.

Hector walked up to him, coming face to face
with the cantankerous old duke. The Boarlord knew of the fate of the Staglord’s
home, Stormdale – that the city had survived
the relentless
attack of the Lion’s army and driven the invading forces out of the Barebones. But
the duke didn’t know.

‘Your precious city fell, Manfred, as
did those within its walls. Last I heard, the Crows and the Rats were tearing it apart
brick by brick, plucking ripe eyeballs from the dead. Your time’s over,
Staglord.’

Manfred’s head went down, his chin
landing on his chest. Hector turned to Ringlin and Ibal, who nodded approvingly, the
queen hanging between them by her arms. As he turned back to the duke, Manfred’s
head was already rising, the antlers erupting from his brow and catching the Boarlord in
his chest, lifting him off the ground. Hector felt a puncturing sensation in his chest,
the air escaping as the spiked tine found a lung.

Ringlin and Ibal dropped the queen into the
snow and, joining the Ugri, circled the Staglord as he held the maimed magister on the
antlers over his head. Hector writhed, the pain absolute and immeasurable. He
couldn’t breathe, his body weight forcing the antlers deeper with every passing
moment, the tine sliding between his ribs.

The Creep’s fist struck
Manfred’s kidneys, sending the exhausted Staglord to his knees. That was all it
took; his head fell forward and Hector slid off the antlers. The Boarlord fell into the
snow, withered hand clutching the chest wound, his lips running red.

‘Kill him!’ he ordered,
gurgling, the blood catching in his throat as he glared at the Staglord. Two Axes
stepped forward, raising his weapons.

‘No!’ cried Bethwyn, the young
lady of Robben, throwing
herself in the way of the Ugri’s axes.
Two Axes faltered, unsure what to do, glancing back at his liege for direction.

Hector’s black hand flew out, the vile
seizing its moment. Quick as a snake, it looped around Bethwyn’s throat, the Ugri
recoiling as the girl’s hands went to her neck, clawing at the invisible
phantom.

Hector shook his head, his vision blurring.
What was happening? Why was he in pain? Where was he?
He lurched up, his
left side seeming to crumple, sending him back on to one knee in the snow. The metallic
taste of blood was thick in his mouth, coating his gullet. He staggered to his feet
between the Ugri, jewelled dagger in hand.

Bethwyn spun on her toes, doing a grisly
dance in the snow. Vincent’s wicked spirit attacked her indiscriminately, their
audience the warriors of Tuskun. Manfred reached up, trying to help her, but two mace
blows dropped him to the ice. Hector could see the vile working its wicked magic, a thin
black noose of smoke constricting the throat of the girl he’d once fancied. He
raised his hand to call it back, trying to concentrate, but his mind was still fogged
with pain, leaving him unable to master the demon.

A movement and a cry to his right caught his
eye, a shape coming forward into his field of vision. Instinct told him to lash out,
knock the intruder away, and his right hand connected with the figure’s chest and
sent it backwards. The jewelled dagger was suddenly out of his hand – there
one moment, gone the next. He turned to see who he’d struck.

Queen Amelie staggered back along the road,
her back turned to him. The fury and anger that had consumed Hector
vanished, his mind refocusing in an instant and causing the vile to cease its
attack.

What are you
doing
,
Hector?
hissed his brother, enraged to have its moment of indulgence snatched
away.

‘Silence!’ cried the Boarlord
with wheezing breath, taking a faltering step of his own after the queen. ‘Your
Majesty …’ he said, both hands raised before him, taking her by the shoulders
and turning her to face him.

Amelie’s skin was paler than ever, her
blue lips trembling as the tears froze in her fading eyes. Her hands shook around the
dagger hilt, where it protruded from her chest, buried in her heart. She fell into the
magister’s arms, her lips brushing his earlobe as she tried to speak.

‘I … I forgive
you …’

A horror such as he’d never known
engulfed Hector. Amelie’s head lolled back, her eyes shifting from grey to yellow
as they stared into the heavens. White lupine fur raced over her flesh, her teeth
sharpening as her mouth opened for one final cry to the heavens. The lingering howl that
emerged was the most mournful wail Hector had ever heard, a scream of sorrow that leapt
higher than the Strakenberg and echoed across the Whitepeaks. The Ugri ran clear,
covering their ears, looking away, terrified by the noise. Hector held her, his body
reverberating, alone with her in his arms. The white fur receded, the canines
disappeared, and as the howl’s last note escaped Queen Amelie’s lips, her
life went with it.

Being a shepherd boy who’d grown up
on the Cold Coast, Drew’s nautical knowledge was limited, but even his novice eye
recognized the
Nemesis
as something spectacular. ‘Dreadnought’ was
the word Count Vega had used to describe such a vessel, a towering, four-masted
man-of-war that dwarfed the ships of the White Sea. While the galleons of
Westland’s navy were impressive – fifty to sixty yards in
length – the dreadnoughts were more than seventy strides long from stern to
figurehead. Most striking of all was the
Nemesis
battery: three artillery decks
as well as cannons mounted on the quarterdeck and forecastle.

Standing at the prow presently, Drew found
himself staring at one such cannon, a long, bronze monster that squinted towards the
horizon. A chest was positioned beside it, nailed to the deck, its iron shot loaded
within. Somewhere below decks was no doubt the blasting powder used to fire these
projectiles. He prayed it was safely under lock and key. Vega had
been at pains to point out that, although many warships of the White Sea had cannons,
the Lyssians hadn’t yet mastered control of the deadly blasting powder. Accidents
still happened all too often. The Sharklord was right to be concerned. That the Bastians
had harnessed the power of the black powder, loading their battleships with three decks
of the cursed cannons, was an alarming development.

‘Your sight may have returned, but
your hearing’s not what it was.’

Drew jumped at the voice, turning to find a
smiling Whitley standing close behind, the Lady of Brackenholme clearly having taken
great delight in sneaking up on him. He embraced her without thinking twice, so happy to
be reunited.

‘You also smell a lot better
now,’ she said, laughing as they parted.

‘Crawling through a sewer can wreak
havoc upon a boy’s scent,’ he replied. ‘If there’d been another
way of getting into that sea fortress, believe me, I’d have taken it.’

‘You’ve quite the following,
Drew,’ she said, glancing to either side of the
Nemesis
. A fleet of ships
kept formation with them, a dozen on either side. Many of them were Bastian, the
remainder pirate ships, all of them seized from the Squidlord Ghul. The Kraken’s
sea fortress had been destroyed, the White Sea finally claiming it as its flaming
remains crashed and sank beneath the waves. The hundreds of pirates who’d been
imprisoned by Ghul now manned the armada, loyal to Drew. The
Maelstrom
kept
pace at the
Nemesis
’s starboard bow, with Bosa’s ship, the
Beluga
, flanking the port side.

‘
We
have a following,’ he
corrected her. ‘These people aren’t just fighting for the Wolf, Whitley.
They fight for Lyssia’s freedom.’

‘They’re calling for you,’
she said.

‘Best not keep them waiting then,
eh?’ he replied as the two set off aftward.

Drew found it almost impossible to resist
saluting the smiling sailors who passed them by. The Bastians from the
Nemesis
had been put ashore on the uninhabited island between Hook and Cutter’s Cove,
along with the other survivors from Ghul’s force. Until the war was over,
they’d remain marooned on that desolate lump of rock known as Blackspire. Those of
value to Ghul – captains, therians and the like – had been kept
aboard the
Nemesis
, locked up in the brig. A relieved Casper was back aboard
his beloved
Maelstrom
with the count. Drew had yet to talk with Vega about the
boy’s revelation. The wings that sprouted from his back seemed to have taken all
but the Sharklord by surprise.

‘I don’t know why you’ve
let her live,’ said the Lady of Brackenholme as they walked.

He didn’t need to ask who she was
referring to; there was only one other woman aboard and Whitley had made no secret of
how much she despised Opal. The Pantherlady presently languished in the brig with her
fellow Bastians.

‘She’s a prisoner of war. There
are codes of conduct we should follow and respect.’

‘She followed no such code of conduct
when she ordered Lucas to kill my brother.’

Drew winced at her honest words.

‘I’m sorry for that, Whitley, but
she might hold the key to unlocking the Bastian stranglehold on Lyssia. We have an asset
here – a hostage – who’s of immense value, to both ourselves
and the Catlords. Can’t you see that?’

‘All I see is the woman who had my
brother murdered, and a friend who’s gone back on his word.’

Drew stopped and took Whitley by the
shoulder, turning her to face him.

‘Are you accusing me of betraying
you?’ he asked incredulously.

‘You promised me justice aboard the
Lucky Shot
,’ she said coldly. ‘If the Hammerhead hadn’t
murdered Captain Violca, she’d be my witness to what you said.’

‘You’ll get your justice,
Whitley, in whatever form.’

‘You know exactly what kind of justice
I seek, Drew,’ she replied calmly. ‘Opal’s a monster who should be put
to the sword. She took Broghan from me. The way I see it, this shouldn’t even be a
subject for discussion.’ She tugged herself free and continued towards the rear of
the ship.