Heart of Black Ice

CHAPTER 44

After leaving the damaged sliph temple, Nicci made her way to Serrimundi Harbor, where the aftermath of the Norukai raid was still apparent. At the mouth of the sheltered harbor, a high rock outcropping protected the entrance with a huge carving of the Sea Mother. Sunken ships with splintered masts rose from the water like grasping hands. Several docks were shattered, pilings uprooted and collapsed.

The harbor was an obstacle course of scuttled cargo vessels, fishing boats, and destroyed serpent ships that had held murderous Norukai. Fishermen, foreign sailors, Serrimundi seamen, and dockworkers all labored together to help the city recover.

Out in the water, some ships had burned to the waterline, and others listed to one side, taking on water. Like flesh beetles stripping the meat off a corpse and leaving only bones, harbor workers crawled over a sunken ship that blocked the main docks. They used saws, pry bars, and mallets to dismantle the wreck, stripping it down to its ribs and keel.

“Tie this rope around the lowest rib under the waterline,” shouted a bare-chested man with a deeply tanned bald pate and a voluminous black beard. He stood at the end of the dock and threw a coil of rope into the water. “We’ll rig a winch on the shore to drag that damned serpent ship out of the main channel.”

In the water, four muscular young men took the rope and swam toward a half-sunken serpent ship just beyond the pier. Nicci recognized the swimmers as arrogant wishpearl divers, surprised to see them pitching in. The divers swam out to the wreck and plunged deep, pulling the rope along with them.

Men rowing small dinghies towed floating debris to a stony beach at the far end of the harbor, where more people pulled wreckage out of the water. They stacked salvageable planks and logs above the tide line and burned other debris in a large garbage fire.

Despite Serrimundi’s ambitious recovery, Nicci was sure the Norukai would strike here again. She had originally come to warn them about General Utros’s army, but instead she had faced the bloodthirsty raiders. Before she’d killed Captain Kor, he had boasted that the Norukai were also attacking Ildakar.

Yes, Nicci had plenty of enemies to fight.

She came upon a merchant dressed in unseasonably warm clothes, a dark woolen jacket and a vest buttoned across his ample belly. He worked alone in front of an open warehouse near a stack of scorched wooden crates. With a pry bar he cracked open the lids to inspect the contents.

Nicci stopped in front of him. “Tell me where to find Harborlord Otto.”

The merchant sweated profusely in his stifling clothes. “I’m ruined. I’ve lost half of my goods.”

“At least you didn’t lose your life.”

He blew air through his lips, grudgingly accepting her statement. “The harborlord is tallying the damaged ships.” He gestured toward one of the main docks. “Look for him aboard the Mist Maiden.”

Nicci knew the ship. That was where she had fought the Norukai and killed Kor. As she walked off, the merchant pulled green and blue silks out of a crate, frowning at the blood that had soaked into the contents. “Ruined, just ruined.”

It didn’t take her long to find the three-masted cargo ship. Crews continued to scrub the bloodstains from the deck of the Mist Maiden. One man hung on a high yardarm like a spider restringing the rigging.

She called out as she approached. “Harborlord!”

Sailors came to the rail to stare down at her. Some cheered. “It’s Nicci. We’re safe again!”

“You’re not safe until you learn how to fight for yourselves,” she replied. Without being invited, she walked up the gangplank to the deck where Harborlord Otto sat on a barrel next to the Mist Maiden’s Captain Ganley, who was betrothed to Otto’s daughter.

The harborlord looked at Nicci from beneath a floppy hat. His caramel-colored eyes were heavy with the sight of too much death and blood. “Nicci! I thought you went back to Ildakar.”

“I tried to. How long have I been gone?”

Otto scratched his beard, considering. “The Norukai attacked ten days ago.” He let out a long sigh. “Without you, my sweet Shira and her children would have been killed. I would have been killed. But you made us stand strong. Serrimundi will never forget that.”

Captain Ganley stepped toward her with a relieved grin as if he meant to hug her, but he hesitated when he saw the razor edge of her demeanor. “There is so much wreckage, it’ll take a year before the city is back to what it was.”

“If the Norukai don’t attack again,” Nicci said, and both men turned pale. “And there is also the army of General Utros to contend with. This is no time to be complacent.”

“Will it really be that bad?” Otto asked. “Serrimundi has prospered for centuries. We kept our independence even under the Imperial Order.”

“This is different,” Nicci said. “Utros is intent on conquering the Old World, and the Norukai are wild animals. They want to raid and pillage, not engage in peaceful trade.”

At the harbor mouth, a lookout on the high promontory of rock banged on a brass gong, and a signal fire took hold, sending pale smoke curling into the air. Otto shaded his eyes. “There’s a ship coming in.”

Tension thickened like a thunderstorm in the air. People gathered along the docks, looking to the mouth of the harbor and the giant Sea Mother, afraid it might be more Norukai serpent ships.

Ganley swallowed hard. “We are not ready to fight again so soon.”

When the lookout banged twice more on the gong, Otto visibly relaxed. Nicci waited for a report. “What does it mean?”

“We know it’s not a warship,” Otto said. “That wasn’t a call to arms.”

A low vessel with patched gray sails slipped past the giant cliff carving. The hull was dark and dirty, but it seemed to be a swift ship, judging from how easily it sailed into the harbor.

“A kraken hunter,” Ganley said with distaste.

“Not just any krakener,” Otto said. “That is the Chaser, my brother Jared’s ship.”

As the dingy ship nimbly dodged the sunken wrecks and protruding masts in the harbor, Nicci admired the captain’s skill. Captain Jared seemed to know every sail, every rigging rope, and every vagary of the winds and currents. He steered and dodged with little room to spare. People crowded the Chaser’s deck, hundreds of bedraggled men and women, even children, packed together. Loaded with so many passengers, the krakener rode precariously low in the water, but the captain deftly guided the vessel to the nearest open slip. At the bow stood a man with dark hair, a gap between his front teeth, and eyes and nose similar to Otto’s.

Nicci followed the harborlord to where the Chaser was tying up. Three narrow planks were thrown down from the krakener to the dock, and the refugees began to disembark, jostling one another in their eagerness to get back on dry land. A crying girl clutched her mother’s hand, and the mother’s head had angry red scabs from severe wounds. The people flowed off the Chaser and milled around the pier, disoriented and lost. Some dropped to their knees, praising the Sea Mother. Many had bloodstained bandages, splints, slings, or obvious bruises.

Nicci and Otto moved among the jabbering refugees, asking questions. The bedraggled people looked shocked and lost. “The Norukai destroyed Effren,” said one man with a prominent black eye. “Our city is burned to the ground. Hundreds taken captive, our women raped.”

An old woman beside him groaned. “Ten serpent ships came at night, led by a man named Lars.”

“The Norukai never attacked Effren before. They don’t come this far north,” the man said. “Some of us hid in our root cellars. Others ran into the hills. Those who stayed to fight—” He swallowed hard and couldn’t find the words.

The old woman finished for him. “Those who fought back were all slain.”

Nicci felt a flash of anger. “I killed Captain Kor, but I remember Lars too. They came to Ildakar with a load of slaves.”

The refugees seemed in a hurry, though they had no place to go. Nicci and the harborlord wove their way through the milling crowd to reach the krakener. Nicci caught a foul whiff as soon as she approached. The Chaser’s hull and deck were impregnated with oil and long-hardened slime. She remembered kraken hunters from her time in Tanimura with the Sisters, where the ships would come in with loads of smelly kraken meat, oil, and leather.

After all the refugees had disembarked, Captain Jared hopped down from the raised bow and came toward them. “Brother, it looks like Serrimundi has had some excitement since I’ve been away.”

“The Norukai attacked,” Otto said. “We defeated them, but not without suffering great damage.”

“You are better off than Effren, I guarantee you that,” Jared said, and his expression darkened. “The Norukai left nothing but wreckage and bodies. When the Chaser arrived, I loaded as many survivors as I could and brought them here to sanctuary in Serrimundi, though some of them stayed behind to pick through the rubble.”

Otto looked at all the people streaming aimlessly down the docks with no place to go. “These refugees can earn their food and keep by helping us rebuild, but with the harbor damaged and the traders skittish, we won’t have many supplies coming in to feed the extra mouths.”

“Nevertheless, you will make do,” Nicci said, allowing no argument. “Those people are all potential fighters who could fend off another Norukai attack or stand against the army of General Utros. You need them.”

Jared flashed her a bright smile, revealing the gap in his front teeth. “And who is this?” Even after the harshness he’d experienced and all the miserable refugees that had crowded aboard his ship, the captain seemed to have inordinate good cheer.

“I am the one who warned Serrimundi to build up their defenses, although a little too late.” She kept her voice neutral, taking no satisfaction in being proved right. She was curious to hear accurate and recent information. “If Captain Lars attacked Effren, that means more than one Norukai raiding party is attacking the coast. More ships may well strike Serrimundi and other cities.”

Jared gave a grim nod. “The Effren survivors say there’s been no word from Larrikan Shores for several days, and that’s farther south. I expect we’ll find that city in ruins as well.”

Nicci already knew that General Utros’s great army was on the move, and now the Norukai threat had grown more severe. She turned to the harborlord. “I need to go north to Tanimura and the D’Haran garrison there. The Old World must unite against this common threat.” When Otto looked at her blankly, not reacting as quickly as she wished, she snapped, “I need a fast horse so I can ride up the coastal road to Tanimura. I want to depart within the hour.”

Jared scoffed. “Why would you want to ride a smelly horse? You’ll be saddle sore and covered with dust before you get there many days from now.” He gestured toward the gray, patched sails of the Chaser and spoke with a heartfelt pride as if he were praising a beautiful woman. “My Chaser is ten times faster than a horse, if we have fair winds.”

Nicci realized that sailing was indeed a faster option. “With my gift, I can guarantee fair winds.”

Jared laughed. “A sorceress aboard my ship. It’ll be a refreshing change.”

“There’s very little refreshing about a krakener,” Otto said with a grimace. “But that is your best choice, Nicci, if you can stand the smell.”

She thought of all the miserable experiences she had endured in her life. “I can stand a bad smell.”