Blood Storm: The Second Book of Lharmell Read online

  The sailors were excessively polite, urging me to the front of the line and fetching a bowl and spoon for me. The cook was a tall, thin man with auburn hair and wide-set eyes. There was something familiar about his aspect. I realised when I turned away what it was – he reminded me of home. He was Amentine. Before I could go back and say hello properly, the first mate, Orrik Lobsen, introduced himself.

  ‘Best ship on the Osseran, the Jessamine,’ he said proudly. He was about Rodden’s age, and sandy-haired and robust. ‘It’ll be a smooth passage to Pol, mark my words.’

  We sat on a bench near the captain’s cabin with our breakfast. Loud snores emanated from within; the captain was still abed.

  ‘He was up most of the night,’ Orrik explained. ‘Right now it ain’t safe when the sun goes down. Been attacks. He likes to stay up and keep an eye on things.’

  I wondered if it also might have something to do with all the rum, but I kept that to myself. ‘How many of you can shoot?’

  Orrik shook his head. ‘Not a one. But we’re all deadly with a cutlass. Sailors fight hand to hand, where we can see the whites of our enemies’ eyes.’ He made it sound as if this was the only honourable way to fight. No wonder they were dying like flies. If it came to an attack there would just be Rodden and me to defend the ship – if he got over his seasickness.

  ‘What’s wrong with your man? He got no sea legs?’ Orrik asked.

  ‘He’s not my man, he’s my friend.’ Even that was a stretch right now.

  Orrik perked up. ‘Oh, really? That so?’ He flashed a smile at me. ‘Get him some root ginger tea from the galley. Sometimes helps.’

  ‘I will, thank you.’ I put my porridge down half-eaten and chewed a thumbnail. I was thirsty. What with all the sulking I had done the previous day I had forgotten to drink. ‘Orrik, say I wanted to wash up and do some . . .’ I waved my hands vaguely. ‘. . . women’s things. Where could I find some privacy?’

  ‘The hold,’ he said. ‘Just cargo down there. And Smokey. Anyone stops you, you tell ’em Orrik said it was okay.’

  I thanked him, and then chewed my nail some more. That solved one problem, but not the other. I had been counting on Rodden to do the unpleasant business of slaughtering the rabbits, but clearly that wasn’t going to happen. If he tried to move he would probably start retching again. I’d killed plenty of rabbits with a bow and arrow but never with a knife. I didn’t have the faintest idea how to do it, but with a sharp blade in my hands it wasn’t as if the bunny was going to come out the victor. Still, the idea was exceedingly distasteful. Orrik was right. There certainly was a difference in killing up close and killing from afar, and I knew which I preferred: the cowardly, far-off way.

  But I couldn’t sit there all day. I was thirsty and the rabbits weren’t going to exsanguinate themselves. I bid Orrik goodbye and went to see the cook. He was eating his breakfast, his lean body propped up against a narrow counter when I tapped on the wall outside the galley and asked for some root ginger steeped in hot water. I couldn’t resist asking as he picked through a cupboard, ‘You’re from Amentia, aren’t you?’

  He looked at me with green eyes, the kind I had seen looking back at me many times before. My mother’s eyes. The eyes of the people of Prestoral. They held the echo of home. ‘Yes,’ he said, surprised.

  ‘Which part?’

  ‘Zantha,’ he said. ‘It’s –’

  ‘On the south-eastern border, at the foot of Mount Campion,’ I interrupted.

  He looked even more surprised and examined my colouring. ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Prestoral.’

  ‘You’re never,’ he said. ‘I heard we were taking on passengers from Pergamia.’ He still studied my face. ‘But you don’t have the Pergamian look about you either. You look Amentine, but that hair . . . We have a princess whose hair is that colour and her eyes are blue like –’ He cut himself off, staring.

  I smiled. ‘Is that the ginger?’ I asked, looking at the root in his hand.

  Sneaking looks at me, he chopped a little and put it in a mug with hot water. ‘You need any more, you just come and ask,’ he insisted. ‘My name’s Lisson.’

  I took the cup he offered. ‘Thank you, Lisson.’

  He gave an awkward little bow, his cheeks flushing pink. I went back to Rodden, smiling to myself.

  ‘Here,’ I said, handing him the tea. Rodden still lay on the decking. ‘The first mate said I could get some privacy in the hold.’ I put a rabbit and a flask in a saddlebag, hoping no one was watching me. The rabbit squirmed suspiciously inside the canvas.

  Rodden answered with a groan, which could have meant anything from ‘Oh that’s nice’ to ‘Kill me, please’.

  To lend authenticity to the story of rabbits being cat and eagle food, I called Griffin onto my wrist. Her normally sharp and clear mind felt like it had a thunderstorm brewing inside it. The gulls were still with us and she was not a happy raptor.

  Inside the damp, cool hold and away from the gulls, she calmed somewhat. Now it was my stomach that was churning. I could feel the rabbit flopping around in the bag. I crouched behind a large crate and wondered how best to go about my task. I could drink straight from the rabbit down here but Rodden could hardly do that on deck. The neck of the flask was wide and I thought that if I got the angle right I could drain the blood out of the rabbit and directly into it. I considered letting the rabbit out in the hold and hunting them down with my bow and arrow. Then I saw Smokey atop a barrel, glaring down at us with amber eyes. Smokey was a big white tom with a piratical patch of black fur over one eye, and with his ragged ears and scarred nose, he looked more than capable of taking apart my fluffy white rabbit. Well, it wasn’t for him.

  I held the rabbit up by its ears and unsheathed my knife. It hung limply in my hands, not even bothering to struggle. We regarded each other silently. I imagined that it had led a reprehensible life of womanising and child-beating.

  It twitched its nose. I took this as a confession.

  I flipped the rabbit so it was hanging upside down by its back legs and its throat was exposed. I placed the knife tip against the creature’s neck, and then paused to steady my hand and squeeze my eyes shut. I couldn’t bear the thought of sucking on its carcass in the dark. Under my breath I counted to three . . . and then plunged the point in and jerked it across and out, severing all the arteries and probably its windpipe too. There was a light spray of blood and the rabbit twitched. Then dark red liquid began to trickle over its chin and into the flask. I let myself relax a little while it drained, glad that the worst was over.

  Back up on deck, Rodden seemed to have rejoined the land of the living. I’d saved a haunch for Leap but asked him to eat it elsewhere. I didn’t relish the sight of him chewing on the bloodied white fur. Griffin got a piece too and I turfed the rest of the carcass overboard when no one was looking. I avoided the accusing gazes of the fourteen remaining rabbits.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Rodden asked, noticing my guilty expression. He was sitting up, pale but composed for the moment.

  ‘Peachy,’ I muttered.

  We shared the flask in silence. I licked my lips when I was done, careful that no trace of blood be left on my mouth. ‘Feeling better?’

  ‘A little. Thank you for the blood.’

  ‘You’ve been keeping me fed for the last five months. It was about my turn.’

  ‘Use a knife?’

  I nodded, looking away.

  ‘It’s not the same as hunting, is it?’ He sounded as if he knew what he was talking about. I had no doubt he did, what with all the rabbits he’d done in over the years. ‘I’m sorry you had to do it,’ he said.

  I shrugged, wanting to forget the whole thing. ‘It’s fine. If you can do it, I can.’

  He sighed and lay down again, covering his eyes with the crook of his elbow. ‘I’m
still sorry.’

  ‘Shh. Be still or you’ll be sick again.’

  But he muttered on, and I didn’t know if his words were directed at me or the blue sky above.

  ‘Deeds like that stay with you. No matter how remorseful you are or even if you have no choice in the matter, you’ll always be that person. The one holding the knife, with blood on their hands.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me, I’m fine.’ But I knew he wasn’t talking about me. He was talking about himself. I had felt the great lake of guilt inside him open up as he spoke.

  I stayed by his side until he fell asleep, wondering who it was he had killed.

  Our days on board were monotonous: hot sun and fitful dozing punctuated by mealtimes and rabbit murdering. Rodden seemed better by day three, but on the fourth day, after a flask of blood, he turned green again.

  I was standing nearby talking to Orrik as he explained how a sextant worked. ‘This here instrument,’ he said, holding up a hand-sized brass object, ‘we use for navigation. As long as the sky is clear we can use it, day or night. You look through this eyepiece at a celestial body, like the sun or the moon, and calculate its angle to the horizon. This gives us our line of position on a map, and if we’re stationary it’s accurate to about four hundred yards.’ He grinned and held it out to me.

  ‘Gosh, really?’ I said, trying to sound impressed as I turned the object over in my hands. I couldn’t help feeling smug that my own internal navigation could be used day or night, cloudy or clear, and with my eyes closed.

  Rodden suddenly scrambled to his feet and vomited over the side. Orrik happened to be looking in his direction and saw that Rodden’s puke was stained red.

  ‘Is he all right? He’s vomiting blood!’

  ‘No, no,’ I said. ‘We had some raspberry cordial and I thought it might make him feel better. I won’t give it to him again.’ I felt my face redden as I lied.

  Orrik frowned at me.

  ‘Tell me some more about the sextant,’ I said.

  He shook his head. ‘I’d better get back to work.’ He cast a curious look at Rodden before walking away.

  I slid down next to Rodden. ‘Wonderful timing,’ I hissed. ‘You couldn’t have held on another minute?’

  ‘No. When it happens it happens. Get me more ginger.’

  ‘Get it yourself.’ I searched the eyes of the other crew members. ‘I think they’re getting suspicious. Have you noticed how they’re always watching us?’

  Rodden was slumped against the rabbit hutch and didn’t answer. Griffin’s performance the previous day hadn’t done us any favours either. Tired of the taunting gulls, she’d launched herself at one in the middle of lunch. Horrified, the sailors watched as Griffin pinned the gull to the deck and proceeded to shred the bird to pieces, all the while screaming in anger and throwing feathers into the air. It was a grisly demonstration to the other gulls of just what would happen to them if they came near her again. It didn’t endear her any to the crew.

  Leap wasn’t behaving much better. He and Smokey staged showdowns every few hours, pacing in circles and glaring at each other from either ends of the ship. Leap had claimed the quarterdeck as his own and Smokey stood firm over the bow. They hadn’t crossed claws yet but trouble was definitely brewing.

  ‘The captain might be drunk constantly but Orrik isn’t stupid,’ I continued. ‘I’m sure he’s heard of harmings and might even have guessed that they’re behind the ship attacks.’

  Rodden cracked open an eye and peered at me. ‘Orrik,’ he sneered. ‘You’re not actually impressed by him and his brass toys, are you? Fancy teaching a harming how to navigate.’

  I rolled my eyes. ‘Try not to throw your breakfast up where others can see you, okay?’

  Later that afternoon, the wind died.

  SEVEN

  The sailors stopped what they were doing and stared about looking spooked. I found Orrik and asked him what was wrong.

  ‘This ain’t right,’ he told me, a haunted look on his face. ‘I’ve heard talk from other sailors of the Osseran that on the nights when ships disappear it’s like the wind has been magicked from the air – on purpose like, to leave them stranded and vulnerable.’

  I nodded. ‘We’re armed,’ I told him. ‘We’ll help you fight if it comes to that.’

  As the sun went down I got more ginger tea from Lisson for Rodden, though the calmness of the sea was doing wonders on its own. I strung my bow, donned my gloves and strapped a quiver of yelbar points to my back. The sailors were sharpening their cutlasses. The rasp of whetstones on metal was the only sound.

  When it was full dark Rodden struggled up and notched a bolt to his crossbow. We stood together, watching the northern horizon. Out here, without the lights of nearby cities, the sky was like black velvet scattered with diamonds. The crew had extinguished all the lanterns on board but we knew it wouldn’t make any difference. The harmings would find us.

  Griffin was patrolling the area, doing wide circuits of the boat. Shortly before midnight she sounded the alarm, blasting a thought-picture into our heads so deafening I was sure even the sailors would pick it up.

  ‘They’re coming from the east!’ I shouted, shattering the silence. Rodden and I sprinted to the stern. A second later Griffin blasted me again – there were more brants flying up from the south.

  ‘I’ll take the south,’ Rodden said. ‘You stay here.’

  I drew my bow and aimed at the stars. Griffin tracked the brants’ distance from the ship. One mile. Half a mile. Two hundred yards. I flexed my gloved fingers on the bow, willing myself to see through the darkness. Another picture from Griffin told me the harmings were travelling close to the water and very fast. I adjusted my aim just in time to see the moon reflected off an enormous shiny black beak. I fired.

  Then they were on us from all sides.

  My arrow hit the harming full in the chest and it toppled from the saddle. The brant screamed, its wings beating against the side of the ship before it turned back into the night. I had another arrow notched in a second but I wasn’t fast enough. A nearby sailor was snatched up by a harming and hauled across the saddle of a brant. The man yelled in terror as the giant bird flew off. There were no screams of pain. Only fear. It seemed we were to be taken alive.

  The sailors slashed at the brants with their swords. They were huge birds but quite nimble and the harmings were careful to hold them back.

  In the dim light, and with the harmings dressed in black, it was easier to aim for the brants, but I realised my mistake when a harming toppled from its dying mount to land on the deck. Righting itself with alacrity, it dropped into a defensive stance as it was surrounded by sailors with drawn swords. The thing’s hood fell back and I saw long black hair.

  ‘Keep away from her!’ I yelled, my fingers fumbling for another arrow. But before I could draw, a sailor lunged with his cutlass. The female was agile and had her blade out and stuck in the man’s belly before he could even bring his down. In the next second she had my yelbar point sprouting from her temple.

  I heard the scream of a harming behind me and knew Rodden had found his mark too. There was another just about to snatch Orrik up and I fired, catching it in the neck. The harming crumpled, flickers of orange fire running through its veins. The brant, suddenly released from its rider’s mind-control, flapped wildly, its talons shredding a sail before it took wing.

  The remaining harmings made a grab for sailors before turning their mounts and fleeing. I found Rodden’s thread and yanked it, hoping fervently that he hadn’t been snatched.

  ‘I’m here,’ he called. I caught sight of him as someone relit the lamps. He had a large, bloodied rip in his sleeve. I ran to him.

  ‘Blasted thing’s talon caught me after I killed its rider,’ he muttered. ‘Just a scratch.’ He caught my wrist in his hand and said in a low voice,
‘Never mind that. You and I are in big trouble. We need to get out of here.’

  ‘But we can’t – there’s no wind.’

  ‘Hence the big trouble.’

  The captain stepped into the light. ‘How many taken?’

  Orrik did a head count. ‘Five, cap’n.’

  I heard the sailors muttering about demons from the north and blood-drinking monsters. It might have been my imagination, but some of their glares seemed to stray to us.

  After he’d reported to the captain, Orrik came over to where Rodden and I stood. ‘I heard you yell that they were coming from the east a full minute before any of us saw anything,’ he said to me, eyes narrowed. ‘And you,’ he said to Rodden. ‘You said, “I’ll take the south”.’ He looked between us and I could see the distrust in his eyes. When we didn’t offer any sort of explanation he said, ‘I’ve got my eye on both of you,’ and then turned and walked away.

  I could see the annoyance on Rodden’s face, but we had bigger things to worry about. He steered me out of earshot of the others. ‘One of those harmings, if not all of them, is going to realise who we are, and we’re stuck on this tub in the middle of the ocean. We’re sitting ducks. They’re not going to let an opportunity like this slip away.’ I’d never seen Rodden panic but right then there was a definite glint of alarm in his eyes.

  Something had been in the back of my mind ever since the wind died. ‘Rodden, harmings can control the weather, can’t they?’

  ‘No. Oh, possibly.’ He looked puzzled. ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘I only ask because I think I can. Well, I can draw a breeze at least. Once. The night before we left Xallentaria –’

  Rodden gripped my arms. ‘Can you summon a wind?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Can you try?’

  I nodded.

  He glanced at the rigging. ‘One of the sails is shredded but it shouldn’t matter. You try for some wind and I’ll keep my crossbow handy in case the harmings come back.’