Siege of Stone

CHAPTER 38

When he saw only three ships from Captain Kor’s raiding party return to the Norukai islands, King Grieve saw no cause for rejoicing. He’d intended to host a celebratory feast, possibly even serving some of the delicious yaxen meat to the victorious captains.

Instead, he felt anger rise within him. Something had gone terribly wrong.

In the previous raid of Renda Bay, the villagers had found new ways to fight, even using a powerful sorceress. The previous captain had been foolish and overconfident. Chalk had never liked the man, which meant that King Grieve never liked him, and he returned from Renda Bay with excuses for his failure. Any Norukai should know not to come back alive from such defeat. Without remorse, Grieve had fed the captain to the serpent god.

Kor’s raid, though, with twice as many ships and fighters, should have avenged that ignominious loss.

Now, the cylindrical iron bells tolled a mournful clamor, which the king could hear even up in the Bastion. Grieve snapped his extended jaws open, feeling the scar tissue along his cut lips. He gnashed his teeth, as if he meant to tear out Kor’s throat and grind his spine into dust. Bunching his fists, he clacked the iron plates in his knuckles together.

Chalk squatted in front of the fireplace to warm himself by the flames, hunching forward on the hearth. When the bells rang out, the shaman sprang to his feet. “A sad mission, a terrible mission, my king. Renda Bay!”

With growing anger, Grieve left his throne room and climbed the steps to the Bastion’s high rooftop so he could watch. Chalk scampered after him.

At the second landing above, a door opened and a slave emerged carrying a stack of folded blankets. She took one look at King Grieve’s expression and fled back into the corridors. Grieve would remember her. He had seen her face, and he would punish her later. For now, though, Captain Kor would be the one to receive the brunt of his anger.

Out on the windswept rooftop, Grieve strode to the battlements, placed his massive hands on the pocked stone and gazed down the sheer wall to the narrow protected harbor, watching the three battered serpent ships pull in from the sea. The vessels looked damaged. One of the midnight-blue sails hung in tatters. The other two sails were also damaged, but had been crudely repaired with wide crisscrossed rope stitches. The extended oars guided the ships past the dangerous rocks, toward the docks.

Grieve grumbled something incomprehensible, just a noise to express his displeasure. Chalk leaned close, his naked, scarred skin brushing Grieve’s muscled arm. “Renda Bay, Renda Bay!”

“Don’t worry about Renda Bay. After this, I will destroy Renda Bay,” said Grieve, “just as I will destroy those weaklings who failed their mission.”

“Maybe,” Chalk said. “Maybe.”

Grieve sent a summons for the leaders of the three ships to be brought to him as soon as they docked. It remained to be seen whether Kor had been foolish enough to come back alive.

While the ships were gone, Chalk had experienced exciting, violent dreams. He had foreseen Norukai conquests, which he described to his king, though the murky foretellings were often difficult to comprehend. That was the problem with the shaman’s babbling. Nevertheless, Grieve had come to expect victory for his people.

Kor’s obvious defeat made the bile rise in his throat. He gripped the rough block where salt air and harsh weather had scrubbed the stone. Chalk scuttled from one overlook to the next, peering down the cliffs to the waves crashing against the rocks.

Grieve could see the hulking shadows of dozens of other islands in the distance, some of them shrouded in mist. His empire held more than a hundred islands, maybe a thousand—no Norukai king had ever counted—but even those numerous islands weren’t enough. His father, King Stern, had strengthened the Norukai, but his vision for their future had been dim and shortsighted. Grieve had no choice but to kill him, at Chalk’s insistence.

The coastal raids had increased as their fleet of serpent ships grew larger, with many Norukai warriors called upon to prove themselves to their new king. But that was only the beginning. Chalk had premonitions, and Grieve had grand dreams. Together, they knew how to implement the future.

In some of the raided towns, the Norukai had seen statues of local heroes, revered leaders, military geniuses. The raiders tore them all down, taking joy in destroying them. Someday, though, King Grieve wanted statues built of him, gigantic stone figures so that people would never forget him. He sacrificed regularly to the serpent god, and now the blood of the Norukai race was strong, just as the great sea serpents were strong.

Fifteen more warships had been completed in the ten days since Captain Kor sailed off on his raid. Other missions had returned to the islands bearing treasure, slaves, and supplies, along with information about the rest of the Old World. Grieve kept careful charts, mapping out the lands yet to conquer. Sometimes he would sit alone and relish the territories, like a starving man considering what he would eat first at a banquet.

If he was going to conquer the world, he could not allow defeats to shame him.

He watched in grim silence as the three battered ships tied up to the piers. Chalk hung over the edge of the Bastion, stretching out his long, skinny arm to grasp at gulls that circled halfway down the wall. Grieve grabbed his friend’s shoulder, steadied him. “Come Chalk, back to the throne room. I have work to do as king.”

“Yes, my Grieve. King Grieve! They’ll all grieve.”

“Kor will certainly grieve.” He turned away from the fresh, cold air and stalked into the shelter of the Bastion again.

Waiting, the king sat on his imposing throne. More logs had been thrown onto the fire to make it an inferno hot enough to incinerate living victims. Grieve was considering that as punishment. It depended on the excuses Kor made.

The glass-walled tank that held Chalk’s pet fish as well as the picked-clean skull of his father rested on a stone shelf behind the throne. Grieve could turn and look at it if he chose, but now he stared forward as Kor entered the large chamber. Preoccupied with the fish tank, Chalk paid little attention to the tension in the room. He tapped the glass with his finger and watched the little forms dart away, only to return seconds later.

Kor, along with equally sullen-looking Lars and Yorik, plodded into the throne room. They wore sharkskin vests, and their knives were thrust into the belts at their waists. They also wore iron manacles, even though the king had not commanded it. The three men entered alone, without a guard escort.

Grieve leaned forward on his blocky throne, feeling the bone spines implanted in his shoulders. He rested a hand on the iron chain wrapped around his waist. “I didn’t think you would be foolish enough to return defeated. You would have been better off to cut your own throats.”

“Maybe, but we are Norukai, and we are not afraid,” Kor said. “We could have killed ourselves rather than face your wrath, but that would be stealing from our king. Only King Grieve has the right to our lives.” He raised his hands, holding up the heavy manacles. “We placed ourselves in chains to surrender to you. I would rather have you kill me than take the coward’s way out.”

He dropped to his knees, as did the other two captains. Tattoos on Kor’s face mimicked the scales of the serpent god, and a sharp implanted tooth poked out of his shaved scalp like a tusk. Lars and Yorik also bowed their heads, letting the iron chains rattle on the floor.

King Grieve rose from his throne and stepped forward, his boots making loud sounds down the stone steps to the polished floor. He loomed over the kneeling men.

Chalk skidded over, abandoning his fish tank. He pranced a weaving path, circling Kor, then Lars and Yorik. “Grieve! You’ll all grieve!”

The three defeated captains remained submissive, their heads bowed. “You may kill us now,” Kor said. His shoulder muscles bunched, and the tendons in his neck stood out.

“I decide how and when to take your lives!” Grieve bellowed. “First, make me understand how a small village like Renda Bay could defeat the Norukai not once, but twice! Did they have another sorceress?”

“They had defenses and an army, King Grieve. Since the previous raid, they have built up fortifications in preparation for our return.”

Grieve snorted. “No one can prepare for the fury of the Norukai.”

“They were … good warriors,” Lars said, sounding ashamed.

“And you were not? The Norukai weren’t sufficient?”

“They had warships of their own,” Kor said. “Siege defenses at the mouth of the harbor, and a great many armed soldiers. They weren’t just fishermen.”

Grieve flashed a glare at Chalk. “You said we would take over the world! And one fishing village manages to stand against us?”

Chalk was oblivious to the king’s rage. “Don’t worry about one fishing village, my Grieve. It’s insignificant. Just a village.”

“If they defeated us, they are not insignificant.”

“They are, they are!” Chalk said, standing behind Kor. “Not important!”

Grieve glowered at the still-hunched captains. “We’ll launch a dozen serpent ships … no, twenty. We’ll send our might north and crush Renda Bay, punish them for the shame they brought upon the Norukai.”

“No, no!” Chalk shouted. “I dreamed it. Not Renda Bay.”

King Grieve quelled his anger, surprised at his shaman’s outburst. Kor, Lars, and Yorik continued to stare at the floor, exposing their necks and waiting for Grieve’s heavy blade to strike the heads from their shoulders.

The king glowered at Chalk. “Are you saying I’ll never take Renda Bay? That I should ignore them and let them have their victory?”

“It’s not a victory. It doesn’t matter.” The pale man rushed up to the king and stared at him. His lips sagged, lumpy with scars, but his eyes were earnest. “We need the cities. Big cities! That’s where your victories must be. Listen to me, my Grieve, King Grieve. We’ll all grieve!” He ran over to the fireplace and stared into the flames.

Grieve waited in awkward silence, and the humiliated captains didn’t move.

The shaman reached his hands into the fireplace until his fingers nearly grasped the fire. “I see it. The cities, the Old World, the whole continent!” He turned back toward the throne and shook his head. Drool came from the mangled corner of his mouth. “Not a little fishing village, my Grieve. You must go to Ildakar. Send all your ships. Conquer that city. Ildakar should be your capital.”

Grieve considered. “Ildakar would make a fitting capital.”

Captain Kor finally raised his head. “Yes, it would, my king. I offer no excuses. I meant to capture the people and burn Renda Bay to the ground, but it was only a gesture. They have just a handful of people in fishing boats, but Ildakar is one of the grandest cities on the continent. It is a fitting place from which to rule a vast Norukai empire.”

Grieve sneered at him. “You couldn’t even take a fishing village, and you mean to conquer Ildakar?”

“Not just Ildakar,” Chalk said, frenetic with energy. “All cities, many cities! Big cities, old cities. I know their names. I’ve seen them in my dreams. Serrimundi, Larrikan Shores, Tanimura, Skald’s Keep, Effren … so many more, my thoughts are dizzy. You must conquer them all, King Grieve.”

The king wrestled with his need to punish these weaklings. Kor continued to look up at him, not pleading. His expression was strong and fierce, enhanced by the hideous scarification. “Listen to your shaman, my king. Ildakar is a worthy center of your empire. I’ve given you all the information I can report. Use it wisely.” He bowed his head again. “Our lives are yours to take.”

Grieve stewed, wanting to lash out to demonstrate his power over these captains. He was tempted to seize all their crew and feed them one at a time to pools of razorfish. He gnashed his teeth again, knowing that now was not the time to sacrifice so many warriors. But he could not doubt his shaman.

The Norukai were restless, and with their many wives, they had given birth to numerous children, a whole new generation of warriors that needed a continent to conquer. And King Grieve would deliver it.

He stepped over to the glass-walled tank, from which his father’s eyeless skull stared out of the murky water where the fish swam. He could be vengeful, or he could be strategic. From his maps, he envisioned the path of his conquest, how once he took Ildakar, the Norukai could spread up the Killraven River, then inland over the mountains, while more naval attacks struck the major cities on the coast. They could conquer the entire continent, and then the Norukai would no longer need to raid and pillage. No matter how glorious they were, raiders were nothing more than violent scavengers. King Grieve wanted an empire of his own.

He turned back to the three captains. “Your lives are mine, and I command your execution.”

The Norukai men sagged, but braced themselves.

Grieve continued, “But I will be the one to decide the time of your execution—especially you, Captain Kor. You are the greatest failure.” He crossed his meaty arms over his chest. “Look at me!” All three captains turned their faces up. “Kor, I command your execution on the battlefield. I want you to lead strikes up the coast, ignore Renda Bay for now, as my shaman insists.” He grunted with displeasure, but he would listen to Chalk. Chalk had never let him down.

“Take ten ships and the maps I will give you. Attack and plunder Larrikan Shores, Skald’s Keep, anywhere you encounter, and if you do not fall in battle in those places, then I command you to attack Serrimundi. If you conquer that city without being killed, then move on to another city and another.” Grieve leaned forward, lowering his voice. “You can delay your execution as long as you like, if you continue to be victorious.”

Kor seemed stunned, as if he couldn’t believe his fortune. “I will die as you command, my king. I’ll do my best to die on the last day of the last battle, after the final city in the Old World has fallen to you.”

Grieve stepped to the other two captains, who continued to avert their gaze. “Lars, you will do the same. Take ten ships of your own. You bear the same death sentence for the disgrace you have brought upon the Norukai. I command you to die fighting in my war of conquest for the Old World.”

Finally, he stepped over to Yorik, lifted his foot, planted it on the man’s chest, and shoved hard, knocking him backward so that he sprawled to the floor.

Chalk danced about with glee. “Yes, yes, it was in my dream! You knew, King Grieve, my Grieve! You knew.”

“The serpent god must be appeased,” Grieve said. “There are other prices we need to pay for the strength of our race. Yorik, the serpent god will drink your blood, even though it is contaminated by failure and cowardice. You’ll be the sacrifice for us.”

Yorik closed his eyes, and lifted his arms, lying on his back on the floor. “I will gladly embrace the serpent god.”

King Grieve bellowed for warriors to rush into the Bastion’s throne room, where they seized the unresisting Yorik, keeping him in his manacles while a smith was called to strike the chains from Kor and Lars, so they could prepare to die in battle.