Thieves of Blood

CHAPTER NINE

“Wake up, child. We’ve arrived, though I can’t tell you where.”

Makala opened her eyes to darkness. She started to panic, but then she remembered: the voice belonged to the old shifter woman Zabeth, and they, along with numerous others, were being held prisoner in the hold of the raider ship Nightwind.

Makala felt no vibrations in the wood beneath her. Zabeth was right: the elemental galleon had docked.

“How long did I sleep?”

If she knew, she might be able to make a rough guess how many leagues the Nightwind had traveled, though she wasn’t certain what the ship’s top speed was. Before Zabeth could answer her question, there came the sound of a lock pin being pulled back, then a rectangular patch of darkness above them was replaced by stars and a partial view of a moon as the raiders opened the hold’s hatch. Nighttime-that meant she’d been on the Nightwind at least a full day, if not more.

A moment later, a rope ladder was tossed down. Makala entertained a brief fantasy of rushing over to the ladder, climbing up, leaping onto the Nightwind’s deck and strangling the closest raider with the chain between her two wrist manacles, but she knew she was too weak, and she was only one person. Even with all of Emon’s training, she’d likely be killed before she could slay even a single raider, so she sat and waited, Zabeth crouched next to her.

Archers ringed the opening, providing cover for two of their fellow raiders who began climbing down. Neither of the raiders carried a lantern, and no one on the deck shone one into the hold for them. It was difficult to tell in the hull’s gloom, but one raider appeared male, the other female. When they reached the bottom of the ladder, they stepped off and drew their swords.

“Up the ladder one at a time,” the male commanded. “If anyone even looks like they’re thinking of causing trouble, they’ll taste steel.”

“Or get an arrow through the heart,” the woman added.

“How can we climb in these manacles?” one of the prisoners, a man, asked.

“There’s enough slack in the chains for you to make it if you go slowly,” the male raider said.

“What if we fall?” someone else asked.

“I suggest you don’t,” the female raider said. “Now move it!”

It took a little prodding from the raiders’ swords, but the prisoners closest to the ladder began climbing. Some cried as they ascended, others mumbled prayers, but most were quiet, as if resigned to whatever fate awaited them topside. Since Zabeth and Makala were next to the wall of the hold, they were among the last to stand and start toward the ladder.

“After you, Grandmother,” Makala said to Zabeth.

The elderly shifter gave her a smile, a wink, then started up the rope ladder with surprising agility for one of her years. Makala didn’t like seeing that wink. Earlier, Zabeth had said something about waiting for the right moment to take action against the raiders. The old woman couldn’t be foolish enough to try something now… could she?

Makala hurried up the ladder after Zabeth. She didn’t think about the raiders still in the hold with their swords drawn, didn’t think about the archers with their arrows nocked and aimed at her. Her only concern was to remain as close as possible to Zabeth so she could intervene if the woman tried anything heroic and stupid.

The cool night air deckside came as a shock after spending an unknown number of hours imprisoned in the Nightwind’s hold. At first Makala found it bracing, but then, weak from hunger and still hurting from the injuries sustained during her abduction, she began to shiver. The prisoners from the raid on Port Verge were already being offloaded one at a time, directed by armed raiders to “Move along now,” in single file down a gangplank onto a wooden dock. There was enough light from the moons and the Ring of Siberys for Makala to get a basic idea of their surroundings.

She took her place in line and followed Zabeth down the gangplank. The three elemental galleons of the Black Fleet had docked next to a steep cliff that Makala estimated v as a hundred feet high. She could make out the striations in the craggy stone of the cliff wall, as well as the silhouettes of trees lining the top. An opening in the shape of a half circle was carved into the base of the cliff, and the dock continued through the opening and stretched into the darkness beyond. All three of the ebon ships had dropped anchor and were disgorging their prisoners, all of whom were being herded along the dock and inside the cliff, prodded by the point of a raider’s sword if they moved too slowly. People sobbed and chains jingled as the prisoners shuffled toward whatever waited for them within the darkness of the cliff. Makala glanced back over her shoulder. They appeared to be in a secluded cove of some kind, the cliff curving around to cut off the view of the sea and hide the Black Fleet’s home port from any passing ships. Despite her current situation, Makala was impressed. This looked to be a perfect base of operations for the Black Fleet.

The light from the moons gleamed on the dark water of the cove. Makala had the impression of shadowy forms moving near the edge of the dock just beneath the water’s surface, but perhaps it was just her imagination. The lingering after-effects of her head injury conspired with the night and moonlight to create an illusion. Still, she decided not to get too close to the dock’s edge.

“Eyes front,” a raider growled and pricked her lower back with his sword.

Makala had to bite her lip and curl her hands into fists, fingernails digging into the palms, to channel her anger so she wouldn’t whirl around and break the sword-happy idiot’s neck.

Ahead of her, Zabeth moaned and stumbled to her knees.

“Get up!” one of the raiders snapped.

Makala stepped forward to help the old shifter woman, but the same raider who’d pricked her back said, “Mind your place, missy, or you might find yourself taking a moonlight swim, and believe me, that’s something you’d prefer to avoid.”

The raiders nearby who had caught the comment laughed, and Makala knew she hadn’t been hallucinating when she thought she’d seen something swimming in the cove.

As much as she wanted to go to Zabeth’s aid, she knew the raiders would never permit it and that she’d likely just cause trouble for Zabeth and the other prisoners by attempting to defy their captors. She gritted her teeth and remained where she was while the sword-happy raider stepped around her. Zabeth knelt with her head hung low, trembling and swaying from side to side, as if she were going to faint any moment. The raider toed her in the rump, not gently, but not hard enough to be considered a kick, either.

“Come on, old woman, get on your feet. We’re not going to carry you in.”

“That’s not a woman!” another of the raiders shouted. “Can’t you see she’s a shifter?”

“Nothin wrong with that!” yet another raider called out. “Ernard likes ’em old and hairy!”

More raiders burst out laughing this time, and Ernard, less than thrilled at being the source of amusement for his companions, kicked Zabeth again, much harder this time.

There was only so much that Makala was willing to let pass. She started forward, intending to fulfill her earlier fantasy about wrapping her manacle chains around a raider’s throat and strangling him. Before she could do so, Zabeth turned to look up at her tormentor, her face transformed into a more savage, bestial aspect. She bared her fangs, growled, and brought her claws up into the juncture between the raider’s legs. The man screamed, blood gushed onto the dock, and Zabeth grinned.

Though the raider had been severely wounded, the man still possessed enough presence of mind to raise his sword so that he might strike back at Zabeth. Makala lunged at the raider and caught his sword arm with her manacle chains. She shifted her weight, yanked hard, and the bleeding raider dropped his sword as he spun off the dock and into the water. He hit with a loud splash and disappeared beneath the surface. Makala saw movement under the water as several large somethings swam from under the dock toward the spot where the raider had sunk. Everyone on the dock, raider and prisoner, watched the water now, and one of the raiders said, “That’s it for Ernard, then,” without the slightest hint of sorrow.

“Better this way,” another raider said. “Who’d want to go on livin’ after gettin’ tore up down there?”

The water burst into a foaming froth as Ernard broke the surface, shrieking in agony and terror. Several large dark shapes had attached themselves to his body, and it took Makala a moment before she recognized what they were-crabs, but not ordinary crabs. These were much bigger, about the size of a large shield. The creatures tore vigorously as the raider’s flesh, oversized claws cutting like razor-sharp blades through skin and muscle, all the way down to the bone. At the rate they were going, it wouldn’t take long for them to strip Ernard’s body clean.

The dock shuddered as if something huge moved beneath it, and a shadow slid out from under the dock toward Ernard, a big shadow.

“Looks like Mama’s hungry,” a raider said, and though the woman’s tone was one of dark delight, there was an edge of queasiness to her voice as well.

The crabs, as if reacting to some silent signal, abandoned their prey and disappeared into the water. Still screaming and bleeding from dozens of wounds, Ernard sank beneath the surface, but he didn’t stay down for long. Water roiled and Ernard burst back into view, caught within the claw of a gigantic crustacean. This, then, was Mama.

The claw squeezed and Ernard’s screams were silenced as the raider fell back into the water as two separate pieces. The surface surged upward and Makala had the impression of a dark craggy shell, a pair of beady hate-filled eyes, and ferociously working mouth parts. Then Ernard was gone, and Mama submerged. The dock shuddered again, and Makala realized the gigantic she-crab had once again taken het roosting spot among the dock supports beneath their feet. How many of the she-crab’s children clung to the supports along with the mother, hungry and ever alert, hopeful that another tasty morsel would fall off the dock and into their waiting claws?

No one made a sound as the ripples caused by the submerging she-crab slowly subsided, but once the water was calm again, one of the raiders stepped forward, grabbed Zabeth by the elbow, and hauled the elderly shifter woman to her feet. Makala expected Zabeth to attack the man just as she had Ernard, but her bestial features were gone. She was just a frightened, exhausted old woman who could barely remain on her feet.

“I don’t know who captured you,” the raider said, “but whoever it was is an idiot. We don’t have any need for shifters, let alone any as old as you.” With his free hand, the raider unsheathed his sword. “Ernard was no friend of mine,” the man said with a slowly widening smile, “but I’m going to enjoy taking revenge for him.”

“No!” Makala shouted.

She tried to put herself between Zabeth and the raider, but someone reached out and grabbed hold of the chain connecting her wrist manacles. The raider was female, and Makala recognized her as one of the pair that had climbed down into the Nightwind’s hold. Steel whispered and the woman pressed the point of a dagger to the underside of Makala’s chin.

“Careful, you’re about to make yourself more trouble than you’re worth,” the raider warned.

Makala wished her mind wasn’t dulled by hunger and her reflexes slowed by weariness. She knew she couldn’t just stand here and let Zabeth be slaughtered, but her brain refused to offer up any alternatives.

The raider who had hold of Zabeth raised his sword high, preparing to bring it down in a killing stroke. Makala hoped that Zabeth might be able to once more unleash the bestial side of her shifter, but the old woman just looked at the sword blade gleaming in the moonlight with tired resignation and waited for death to claim her.

“Hold!”

The voice echoed through the air, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once. The raider holding Zabeth froze, an expression of stark terror on his face. Makala glanced at the woman holding the dagger to her throat and saw a similar expression mirrored on her face. All the raiders looked scared, and they all stood motionless as statues, heads turned toward the entrance in the cliff wall where the dock disappeared into darkness. Makala turned and watched as two figures came striding forth from the shadows. She recognized the one on the left as Onkar. The raider commander was grinning, displaying his sharp vampire teeth, and his eyes glowed red like two smoldering fires.

At first she thought the woman walking next to Onkar was also a vampire. She was beautiful: tall, thin, and pale, with a slightly angular face and long raven-black hair. She was garbed in a red leather bustier and black skirt, but as Onkar and the woman drew closer, Makala could see that she was human after all. Her eyes didn’t burn with crimson fire, and though her flesh was pale, it wasn’t fish-belly white like Onkar’s. While the sea captain moved with the fluid grace of a large predatory cat, the woman, graceful enough in her own right, couldn’t match the vampire’s eerie litheness.

As Onkar and the raven-haired woman stepped before Zabeth and the raider holding his sword over the old woman’s head, Makala thought she’d have to revise her estimate. Onkar’s companion might be mortal, but the raiders had shied away from her presence as much if not more than Onkar’s.

The man holding Zabeth slowly lowered his sword, as if he didn’t want to risk making any sudden movements near Onkar or the woman. He bowed his head.

“Commander Onkar, Lady Jarlain,” the man said in a quavering voice. “How may I serve you?”

“You can release the shifter woman,” Onkar said, “unless you’d like to take her place.”

The raider paled and shook his head. He released his hold on Zabeth, quickly sheathed his sword and scurried off to lose himself among his fellow raiders.

The black-haired woman-Lady Jarlain-turned to look at the raider holding the dagger against Makala’s neck. “You, too, dear. Put the knife away and go before I decide you could use a session or two alone with me in my chambers.”

Though there was no overt menace in Jarlain’s tone, the raider made a terrified choking noise and pulled the blade away from Makala’s throat. She sheathed the dagger, bowed low to Onkar and Jarlain, and departed at a near run.

Jarlain might not be a vampire, Makala thought, but she certainly inspired as much fear in the raiders as one.

Onkar turned to address his crew. “Stop standing around and get these prisoners inside!” When no one moved right away, he shouted, “Now!” in an inhumanly loud voice that made the wooden boards of the dock shudder beneath their feet.

That broke the raiders’ paralysis, and they hurriedly resumed herding prisoners down the dock and into the cliff tunnel. After all that had occurred since they’d arrived, the prisoners gave their captors no trouble and went along quietly.

Makala put her hands on Zabeth’s shoulders, intending to help the shifter woman rejoin the rest of their fellow prisoners, but Onkar held up a hand to stop her.

“Not you. You’re not going to the holding pen with the rest of the rabble like this old wolf.”

The vampire took hold of Zabeth’s arm and shoved her toward the line of marching prisoners. The elderly woman stumbled and Makala feared she would fall, but Zabeth managed to maintain her balance. She gave Makala a last look, said, “Take care of yourself now,” then fell into line with the other prisoners.

“You too,” Makala replied, though she knew it would be far easier said than done for both of them. She turned to Onkar and Jarlain, trying not to look as frightened as she felt. “Where am I to go?”

Onkar’s lips stretched into a smile wider than any human mouth could make, and his fangs glistened wet in the moonlight. “You’ve been granted a great honor,” the vampire said. “You get to meet the master.”

Jarlain’s smile was smaller than Onkar’s but no less sinister. “We’re taking you to see Erdis Cai.”