The Dark Defiles (48 page)

“Hoy, look—No! Fucking pack that in!”

Gort’s muffled bellow from a couple of cells down the keel. Something nearly like a smile touched Wyr’s lips, then passed slowly away. He lowered himself back down to the plank flooring and slid fingers under the fetters on his wrists, massaging the abused flesh there as best he could.

He crouched there, thoughtful, trying to understand why the arrival of the plague ships should feel so much like something good.

H
E FED HIMSELF WITH RIGID CONTROL FROM THE BUCKET.

Gort hadn’t lied, it was pretty much a double helping by jail standards and still retained a faint trace of oven warmth despite the long crossing from Harbor End. The hunk of bread floating on top seemed massive. He tore off the portion that was already soaked through with broth and ate it first, to take the edge off his hunger. Then he sieved out some of the miserly ration of solid pieces with his fingers, soft chunks of carrot and crumbling potato, a stringy shred of meat with a blubbery lump of fat still attached, and ate them one savored piece at a time.

He was still chewing when the sounds started under the hull.

For a brief, fuddled space, he thought that
Sprayborne
must have slipped her chains. Was being carried on the current across boulder-studded shallows. Irregular, spaced bumping along the keel. Like that time in the Scatter, skulking to avoid imperial patrols, nearly lost the whole fucking ship that time, had to put stripes on ever member of the watch for fucking up so badly … 

It took a moment or two for common sense and recollection of where he was to catch up—there was no sense of motion in the hull other than the faint, eternal rocking in place he was used to, and anyway, he would have heard the ring of hammers if the anchors had been struck. And the riverbed was pure silt out here, shallowing to nothing but the broad expanse of mudflats and marsh.

Yeah, silt and the bones of your murdered children.

Sharp, fast spike of rage to drive out the musing. Before he could stop himself, he lashed out with his foot, caught the food pail and sent it flying.

He sat staring sickly at the mess.

Four years, four fucking years, of starvation diet and enclosure, and here he was, brought to this. Mind left loose and slow, clarity fogged by drifting banks of exhaustion and weary self-pity, losing himself in spirals of memory and addled reflection it could take hours to shake off.

And then, suddenly, he was scrabbling forward to right the pail before it dribbled out every last trace of the stew within. Mumbling to himself.

“Oh no, no—no, no …”

Flinging himself flat to lick up the remaining spill before it leaked away between the planks, scooping up the solids on trembling fingers, dropping them back into the bottom of the bucket, peering whimpering in after them to see how much he’d managed to salvage.

“Sorry, I’m sorry, I’m
sorry
… ”

More soft bumping, right beneath him where he crouched. He froze, staring down at the cell floor as if he could see right through it, through the bilges below and the hull, out to whatever was hanging there in the murky gloom under the keel, knocking to get in.

The planking under him sprung a leak.

At first it was small, a sudden darkening of the already age-stained wood, like a man pissing his breeches under torture. If his naked foot had not been resting in the center of the patch, he might not even have noticed it. But then the water began forcing its way through in earnest, welling up out of the wood, mounding three full fingers above the floor and—as he jerked his foot out of the patch in alarm—following his moves like a living creature.

He backed up against the far wall of the cell, shaking his head. Watching in dazed fascination, saw the mound of water cast about where he had been, as if confused by his sudden disappearance. It went on swelling as it moved, welling steadily upward, and now it radiated a faint phosphorescence into the cell, like seaweed spores he’d once seen floating in the southern seas.

He wondered numbly if some cunt back at the kitchens in Harbor End had spiked his food with mushroom powder for a laugh. Wouldn’t be Gort, but maybe one of the others. Had to be, because it was either that or—

The water seemed to have detected him again. The mound ceased its circular motion and began to slip like a purposeful jellyfish across the planking toward him. It was over knee height now, and he thought he could discern movement within—soft churning and the spindling turn of pinprick luminescent points.

Fascination chilled away into dread—this was no fucking ’shroom dream.

“Salt Lord,” he croaked, desperate. “Salt Lord, stand by me now and all—”

But his voice caught and stuck. He started to back away again, and his chains brought him up short. An attempted shout caught in his throat. He could feel his eyes starting from their sockets. His new cellmate was almost on him. He shrank from its glistening curve in dread, wrenching his wrists and ankles on the fetters as he fought to escape.

A terrified, inarticulate scream tore its way finally up his rusted throat, shrilled into the damp prison air, just as the water engulfed his legs.

From down the corridor, another shriek answered. And the clatter of something being dropped. He knew the voice for Gort’s, but had no time to care. At his feet, something in the water began to bubble, and a long, thin stain swam up through the commotion. It was the color of blood. He thrashed at his fetters as he saw it, screaming hard now, already feeling the pain, the suction as this thing—

The left manacle gave. His leg came loose.

After four years in chains, it was like the jolt of a dislocated limb. He stumbled with the shock, and his right leg came free, following the left. He floundered and fell, out of the watery mound, backward on his arse on the planking.

His feet … 

He became abruptly aware that he was still screaming, and shut his mouth with a snap that hurt.

His feet were free.

Up on deck, more screams.

He dared to stop watching the bubble of water—it had made no move to follow him—and snatched a glance downward instead.

His feet were free.

The manacles were gone. He could see the shiny bands of scar tissue they had laced around his legs just above the ankle, could see the full extent of the scarring for the first time. He would have reached down to touch, but the manacles that still held his arms would not allow it. At his side, the mound of water had grown to waist height and now sat there, like a faithful hound. He peered into it, through the distortions of the faintly glowing water to the other side, where his chains lay loose on the floor. They ended abruptly at the bubble’s edge, and within there was nothing but smears and turdlike crescents of rust.

The bubble quivered impatiently.

Wonderingly, he looked at the wrist cuffs he had worn for the last four years, then back to the mound of water. He drew a deep breath, raised his arms, and sank them into the softly glowing heart of the bubble. It was, he noticed this time, not as cold as seawater should have been and—

Fierce seething around his wrists, and once again he saw the blood-colored stains spinning off through the water, as centuries of corrosion took place in seconds. He felt the first cuff snap apart and fall and he snatched that arm up to his face, feeling tears now as he saw the unfettered flesh. His other arm was free seconds later and suddenly he was shouting, laughing, and crying at the same time. He pushed deeper into the heap of water, crouched so that it covered his body to the shoulders. It was warm and soothing. He ducked his head under and shook it madly. The first bath he had had since capture, unless you counted the buckets of cold water with which his jailers sluiced down prisoner and cell a couple of times each month. He laughed in the water, spewing bubbles. He thrashed his arms about. He erupted from the body of his new friend, kicking and splashing like a child.

The bubble moved abruptly away from him, apparently not pleased with this levity. It cruised pettishly about the cell in figure eights for a few moments, then retreated to the latrine corner and sank abruptly out of sight down the hole. Sharkmaster Wyr bid it good-bye with one inanely waving hand, then stifled his laughter and shook water from his beard and hair. He listened intently.
Sprayborne
creaked around him, but there was silence aboard. Whatever had been done to Gort was over, and his fellow prisoners had either been similarly silenced or were crouched in their cells, awaiting whatever came next.

On the cell floor, he saw the mound of water’s departing dance had severed his chains in a couple of places, leaving handy lengths rusted apart at each end. Quietly, he moved—still dizzy with the unconstrained ease of doing it—and gathered up the nearest length. He crouched as if in a dream, wrapped the links slowly around his fist, pulled them taut with trembling hands. He’d have to wait until someone came to check on him, but, Hoiran’s barbed and twisted cock, when they did, the first man through that fucking door … 

Splinter and crack—the door exploded outward, torn from its hinges and frame, tossed out into the corridor like a playing card.

“Fuck.”

The curse yanked involuntarily from his lips. He crouched at bay, bare feet planted firm on the damp planking. Rusted chain link ends swaying fractionally where they hung from his knotted-up right hand. He waited to see what would come through the hole where the door had been.

Nothing did.

He straightened slowly up, eyes pinned to the wrenched and splintered doorjamb. He listened hard, heard nothing at all. Crept finally out into the corridor.

In his first year of captivity, he’d dreamed of walking this passage, night after night, only to wake each time to the cold grasp of the chains on his wrists and ankles. Sometimes it happened in vague, mist-tinged tones, but in other dreams, the details were more real—a hidden key smuggled in by one of his men who had somehow escaped, a regal pardon from the Chancellery for some convoluted clerkish reason or other. Sometimes they came for him because there was war brewing in the southern seas, and he the wronged hero of the hour … 

Sometimes he walked the corridor freely.

Sometimes he fought every inch of the way, and that was better.

Now he had to clench his fist hard on the rusted iron chain, time and again, to remind himself
this was not a dream.
To stop himself from trembling.

He found Gort at the far end of the passage, near the companionway. The jailer sat slumped on the floor among his spilled and tumbled pails, back to one of the cell doors. His guts were dumped out in his lap like a meal he could no longer manage. Something had slashed him open side to side, and then torn out his throat. From the bloody handprints and the mess, it looked as if he’d tried to climb the companionway with his guts hanging out, but had been dragged back down by something for the finish.

By some thing.

Wyr pursed his lips and looked warily up the companionway to the open deck hatch above. The pale light of day awaited. For a moment, he’d taken his trembling for fear, but now it dawned on him that whatever was waiting up there, he’d gladly face it with no better weapon than the chain in his fist, just for the chance to stand on
Sprayborne
’s deck again and feel the breeze that blew across it. He’d face it and he’d fucking kill it, whatever it was, whatever that took, just so he could stand there a few moments longer in the open air.

He sniffed hard, hefted the chain once more, and then he climbed the companionway as swiftly as his stiff and unaccustomed limbs would allow.

“
G
OOD.”

The voice came while he was still clambering out of the hatch, pitched loud across the deck from the port rail. Sharkmaster Wyr scrambled out and pivoted on his bare feet, dropped to a fighting crouch again.

Saw a single cloaked form at the rail, back turned to him. He took a step forward and his heel skidded on something. He swayed and nearly went down, staggered for balance, and some rusted old boarding party reflex kept him on his feet. The figure at the rail didn’t move, didn’t turn. He saw it wore a long sword sheathed across its back, doubted it could clear the blade with any great speed, and felt himself relax just a fraction.

He spared a downward glance, and saw he’d stepped in blood.

Saw, in fact, that the deck was painted with the stuff, splashes and streaks and pools of it, spread between four scattered bodies, one of which was still moving, but not very much.

He did the count, ingrained habits from his plundering days taking over while the disbelief in his head sang a high, whining note like the sound of too much silence in your ears. Four men, all well armed. Two in loose, unremarkable garb with short swords sheathed at the hip, one of them with an eye patch—Gort’s broken-down war veterans no doubt, paid mainly to row—and two more in cheap mail vests and open-face helmets, apparently armed with short-shafted ax-head pikes; by the weapons, Wyr made them for port authority guardsmen. They were all dead, bar the one with the eye patch, who was down but still trying to drag himself toward the stern, an inch at a time on his belly in a broad-painted trail of his own blood.

Apparently not one of the four had managed to get their steel drawn or blooded.

Sharkmaster Wyr raised his head once more to the figure at the rail.

“Salt Lord?” he husked. “Dakovash?”

“No.” The figure turned now to look at him. “But I get that a lot. Did you pray to that fucker for something, too?”

The face was gaunt and scarred down one cheek, the dark hair gathered back from features that might once have been handsome, but now held only a commanding hunger. The eyes were dead as stones, but there seemed to be no threat in them right now. And something in the narrowed gaze unlocked a chamber inside Wyr, let out what was coiled up inside.

“My family.”

“Ah.”

“I called on the Dark Court for aid; they did not come. My family died in cages instead. I called on the Salt Lord to free me for vengeance, I swore to spill blood from the ocean to the Eastern gate in his name, and he did not come then, either.”