The Black King (Book 7) (6 page)

The Fey made freedom fighting exceptionally difficult. When Markos was five years old, the Black King of the Fey had come to Blue Isle and destroyed everything. Some Islanders had fought back, exploding a Fey weapons store, and the Black King had retaliated by burning every building in the center of the Isle.

Markos remembered that fire. He remembered watching the Fey soldiers set fire to his house, killing his father. His mother, holding Markos against her, had hidden them in the root cellar. Her hand had smelled of dirt and sweat, her fingers digging into his skin. Through a small opening in the cellar door, they had watched his father die and had seen everything they owned destroyed.

The Fey who had done it had laughed.

For years after that no one rose up against the Fey. Some said things would get better because King Nicholas’s half breed daughter ran the country. They said that even though she was Fey, she was raised Islander and would make sure all the traditions remained.

But the Rocaanist kirks remained empty. The Auds were dead. A few Danites practiced in secret, but everyone knew that to practice the religion was to court the wrath of the Fey. Occasionally the half-breed Queen would issue decrees, and while they made the land more fertile, a lot of the crops now went off-Island, to places Islanders had never been. Some Fey were even marrying Islander women, destroying the purity that had been the Isle’s hallmark from its very beginning.

Occasionally, there would be resistance to the Fey. Someone would stand up, refuse to do things the Fey way. Then visitors would come, usually Islander ones who would convince the rebel that the only way to do things was to play along.

Now, it was said that the half-breed brother was returning, having learned all the Fey tricks from his uncles on Galinas. He would begin where the Black King left off, destroying all the remaining Islanders. He’d been raised Fey, and he was coming here with the express purpose of making Blue Isle a completely Fey stronghold.

Doron held a meeting of all the dissatisfied Islanders he knew and asked them if they wanted to strike a blow against the Fey. Those that didn’t were asked to leave. The remaining group—twenty that night, thirty by the next—agreed that this might be their only chance.

There was the risk of retaliation, of course. Doron had mentioned that too. But Queen Arianna had shown herself remarkably lenient with criminals. It was the hope they could all rely on. That, and the fact that if they succeeded, her brother—the one with all the Fey training—would be dead.

It was what kept Markos standing here in the rain, letting the cold water drip down his back. Doron’s plan, the hope it provided, and that laugh—the one he still heard whenever he closed his eyes. The Fey thought they had conquered Blue Isle. They thought they could destroy it.

They were wrong.

“Hey, Markos!”

He turned. Blasse stood behind him. Blasse was a large man, but with his hair plastered down by rain, his beard dripping, he looked much smaller. He had a bow over his shoulder, and his quiver was full of arrows.

“You really think anyone’ll come through the Guardians in this weather?”

“Not anyone intelligent,” Markos said. “But when has that stopped the Fey?”

He moved away from his perch. Blasse came over, scanned the river for a moment, and sighed. He didn’t want to be out in that weather any more than Markos did. “For the last week, there’s been nothing. You think the rumors were true?”

It was the closest the group came to questioning Doron.

“Sometimes I wonder,” Markos said. “But what if we give up and the next day the Fey ships come through the Guardians?”

Blasse grunted. He wasn’t a deep thinker. But, like Markos, he’d lost his entire family to the Fey when he was a boy. He’d spent most of his adulthood living in parts of the Isle where there weren’t a lot of Fey. Those parts were growing scarcer.

“I saw a lot of those half-bird Fey creatures,” Markos said. “That Hawk with the woman on its back spent half the morning sitting on that stone over there, staring at me.”

“Should have killed it.”

“How do you kill those things? Shoot it through the bird heart or through the Fey heart?”

Blasse shrugged. “Maybe both.”

“Besides, I’m saving my killing for the half-breed.”

“The Fey’ll know you did it.”

“They’ll know we all did it. That’s why we got to follow Doron’s plan.”

They weren’t allowed to discuss the plan any more than that, at least not out here.

Blasse grunted again and blew some water off his lips. “I hope none of them bird creatures come around tonight. I’m getting itchy enough to make ‘em into target practice.”

Markos ran his fingers over his eyes. He was wet and cold. He’d be glad to get back to the abandoned kirk and sit in front of the small fire the men allowed at night. Some sleep, and he’d be back in the morning.

There were other archers stationed at other points along the river. If Markos or his group didn’t stop the Fey ships with the half-breed on them, someone else would. The Queen’s brother would never make it to Jahn.

As he moved his fingers away from his eyes, he turned his head toward the Guardians. Something black peeked out of the tunnel made by the tallest stones.

“My God,” he said. His heart started pounding. He hadn’t believed, until this moment, that the half-breed would actually come.

“What?” Blasse asked.

Markos pointed. Blasse leaned forward and squinted. The black shape that Markos had seen revealed itself as the prow of a ship. It was riding the chop, sails up, spray surging over the bow as if the water alone could wash the Fey off the ship.

Blasse stepped back, his hands shaking. He tried to pull his bow off his shoulder, but his fingers slipped on the string. It slid down his arm, but he caught it before it clattered to the ground.

Above them a Hawk with a Fey on its back swooped over the two men, uttering its distinctive cry. Markos watched it for half a moment, recognized the woman on its back, and groaned. Had she heard the remarks about target practice? If so, they might be dead soon.

But she didn’t seem interested in them. Instead, she flew directly for the ship. Markos watched until she became a speck in the air, riding the currents, the tips of her wings upturned. After a moment he realized that anyone watching her from the ship itself would see only a hawk, not the Fey riding it.

He thought that strange, almost as if she were concealing herself.

“I think there’s only one ship.” Blasse was trying, with his shaking hands, to thread an arrow in his bow.

Markos pulled his bow down and looked too. Blasse seemed to be right. Unless the others were farther back in the Guardians. But that seemed dangerous. Ships that came through the Guardians usually followed closely in each other’s wake so that they could catch the same currents.

Markos gripped his bow. His hands weren’t shaking. He had waited all his life for this moment. He threaded his first arrow and watched as the ship drew closer.

It rode forward, taking the waves as if it were daring them to overturn it. At times he could barely see the ship for the spray. The ship had cleared the last of the Guardians and was making its way from the harbor into the river. The Cardidas was wide and flanked on both sides by cliffs. But the ship still had to follow a relatively narrow path to take it to Jahn.

As it came closer, he cursed the way that the rain interfered with his ability to see below him. Blasse had grown silent too, aiming at the ship, his hands still shaking. Only Markos seemed to have any chance of hitting anything.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “If we miss, there are others upstream who’ll get them.”

Blasse nodded. He rested his elbows on the stone ledge before him, and that eased his shaking somewhat. Markos decided that was a good position, and did the same.

The ship was moving into range.

Other bird-Fey were flying above it, almost as if they were leading it forward, cawing and shouting. He couldn’t make out the words, not that he would have understood them if he did. He’d always made it a point not to learn the Fey’s cursed language.

“How do we tell which one is him?” Blasse asked.

Good question. For some reason no one had thought of it until now. And it was an important question too because they didn’t have that many arrows, and he didn’t know how long it would take before those Gull-Fey flew up to the bowl and tried to kill them.

“Let’s shoot the guy who’s steering,” Markos said. “That’ll slow them down. If the half-breed is on the deck, the others’ll rush to protect him. If he’s not, he’ll come up fast and then we’ll get him.”

Blasse nodded. They waited in silence for the ship to pull closer. Markos felt his stomach quiver, but his hands remained steady. The cry his father had made when they set fire to the house resounded in his memory. That and the laughter.

The ship was in position.

“All right,” Markos said. “Now.”

He had the target in his sights. He pulled the arrow back and released it as Blasse did the same. They moved in unison, reaching behind their backs for another arrow from the quiver, threading it, and shooting before the first arrows had found their marks.

They hadn’t needed the second shots. The first arrows both hit the Fey behind the wheel and he fell, startling those around him. Markos could hear the shouts echoing off the canyon walls. The few Fey lying oddly against the rail didn’t move—were they already dead?—but some of their supporters did.

The men in the middle didn’t seem to move at all. But one, toward the front, looked up. He scanned the walls of the cliffs, and then his gaze stopped. The ship was directly below Markos when the man pointed to the hiding spot.

Markos had another arrow lined up. So did Blasse.

“That’s got to be him,” Markos said.

“We have to be sure,” Blasse said.

The bird-Fey were still moving forward but a few of the Fey on the ship had moved to the edge of the deck and were shouting at them, and waving their arms.

“We don’t have time to be sure,” Markos said.

And then it seemed as if God smiled on him. Two of the Fey grabbed the pointer’s arm and tried to pull him below deck.

“You’re right,” Blasse said. “That’s him.”

Together they aimed, and let their arrows fly.

FIVE

THE FIRST ARROWS killed the Captain. Gift had been standing beside Wave as one of the arrows went through his throat. The Navigators around him screamed and a few seemed to lose their concentration. Some of the Fey behind the Sailors ducked.

Gift looked toward his left as two more arrows hit the deck. They had come from the cliffs. He scanned until he saw the bowl where his parents had negotiated the treaty that had united the Fey and the Islanders. He thought he saw movement.

He pointed, and as he did, two Fey grabbed him, and tried to pull him backwards. He shook them off. The ship was out of control, heading toward the rocky shores.

“You!” he said, shoving one of the people away from him. “Get the wheel. Get us on course.”

“I don’t—”

“Do it!”

The man ran toward the wheel. The other was still holding Gift. He shoved the man away as more arrows flew, dangerously close.

There was no way of telling how many archers stood above them.

“We have to get this thing out of here,” Gift said. “Get those people off the deck. They need to help the Sailors. Make sure the Navigators are working—and all of you, call to the Gull Riders.”

An arrow hit the man Gift had been yelling at. The tip protruded from the man’s stomach and he looked at it, stupidly, as if he couldn’t believe it was there. Then he fell to his knees, and watched the blood run with the rain across the deck.

Arrows landed near Gift, and he suddenly realized he was the target. The man he had directed to the wheel was trying to turn it, but not doing a very good job. Gift hurried toward him, figuring that as long as he moved, he was not in any danger.

Skya had come on deck. Gift cursed softly. He didn’t want her here. He hurried to her, put his arms around her, and pushed her toward the deck house.

“They’ll kill you,” he said.

She raised a single eyebrow. “Looks to me like someone is trying to kill you.”

The man was still struggling with the wheel and the ship was losing momentum. If no one did anything, they’d be stuck here, easy targets for the archers above.

Skya saw it too, and went for the wheel, but Gift held her back. “Wave died there.”

“We’ll all die here if someone doesn’t do something.”

Some of the Fey on deck were shouting for the Gull Riders. The Sailors were still in position, two of them with arrows in their backs.

Gift shoved Skya toward the stairs. “Get the Nyeians. One of them can steer.”

She started to protest, but he shoved harder. He went for the wheel himself, but the man shook his head. “I’m getting it!”

The ship was listing to one side. A wave came up over the deck, washing the man with the arrow through his stomach overboard. One of the Fey women—a young one—screamed.

Arrows were spraying the entire area around Gift. One of them hit a Navigator who collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

Then Skya was back on deck. She grabbed Gift and flung him aside as if he weighed nothing. She held him underneath the overhang. “If you die, we all die. You’re staying here.”

One of the Gull Riders landed, and skidded across the wet deck. He ended up near Gift’s feet.

It was Ace.

“Find them,” Gift said. “Find whoever is shooting those arrows. Who sent them. Why they’re here.”

Ace nodded and flew off. Gift watched for a moment. The rain was coming in at an angle as the wind picked up. The drops were spattering his face, making it hard to see.

They weren’t shooting any more. They were waiting for him to come out.

On the deck at least a dozen Fey clutched wounds and moaned. A Nyeian came up the stairs at a run, saw the devastation and started down again.