Chapter 1
“Hey-o, Philosopher, your relief is here!”
Druadaen turned at the sound of Ahearn’s voice, rising up from the aft companionway that descended into the Atremoënse’s darkened sterncastle. The ship’s Corrovani captain glanced over the forward rail of the quarterdeck, frowning down upon the unwonted loudness. “Outrider Druadaen,” he muttered loudly, “I trust you shall better marshal your companions. We run dark and quiet when navigating the Passwater at night.”
Ahearn’s head popped up from the companionway. “What’s that now, Captain? Are my good spirits an annoyance?”
“Your good spirits are your own business.” The captain’s tone was grim, even for a Corrovani. “But to shout about them is against the orders I gave earlier. And insofar as you travel free of fare, I expect not merely adequate, but grateful, compliance.”
Ahearn’s broad face, lit only by the dim glow of the two moons sinking toward the dove-gray predawn horizon, conveyed his response: one raised eyebrow.
The captain glared at the swordsman, then Druadaen. “I require that your companions make their intent to comply explicit, Master Outrider!”
“I shall urge them to do so,” Druadaen answered with a shallow nod, “but as you say, they are my companions, not my servitors.”
The Corrovani snorted. “Whatever your arrangement, they follow you readily enough. Despite your casual exercise of authority.”
Ahearn glanced up at the much older man. “Aye, an’ that’s no small part of why we follow him.”
The captain stiffened, raised his chin—
“Captain Nolus,” Druadaen interjected before that worthy could speak, “I’m sure Ahearn’s, er, outburst was an oversight caused by eagerness to stand on dry land once again. The last hours are the hardest to wait through, and I suspect that all of us shore-lovers are a bit distracted.”
“Aye,” Ahearn mumbled with his back to the Corrovani and a grin on his face, “very distracted.”
“Well, then, Master Ahearn, I trust you will henceforth follow the orders I gave last night.”
“That I will, sahr. No lights, no loud voices, no clumping about the decks or down below.” He looked back up at the captain. “Ye’ve my word on it, Captain.”
Nolus nodded curtly and returned to the con, where the pilot was busy keeping them to the northern edge of the strait known as the Passwater.
“Teeesht, but his codpiece must chafe,” Ahearn hissed at Druadaen. “And I didn’t take him for the superstitious type.”
Druadaen leaned on the gunwale, looked at the southern landmass coming into view. “I’m not sure he is.”
Ahearn’s head cocked back in surprise. “Here, now: surely the Dunarran Philosopher doesn’t pay any never-mind to sailor’s tales!”
Druadaen shrugged. “If tales they are. The waters around Shadowmere have a grim reputation.”
“Aye, as well as the island on which it sits. And the moat around it. And the buildings in it. And the great majority of its inhabitants. No doubt its lapdogs and housecats are equally fearsome.”
Druadaen couldn’t keep from grinning. “No doubt. But you heard Tharêdæath’s warning before he doubled back to Dunarra. ‘In Shadowmere—’”
“‘—nothing is as it seems.’” Ahearn crossed his thick arms. “I was surprised that he’d spout such superstitions, but it seems that even an Uulamantre can’t resist speaking darkly about the city. And making warding signs as they do.”
“Tharêdæath made no warding signs.”
“And you criticize me for being too literal? Shame on yer lofty self!”
Druadaen nodded at the dark coast. “Still, when anyone of Tharêdæath’s years and experience gives a warning, I don’t disregard it out of hand.” The lights dotting the black inland reaches were far back from its shore’s most dramatic feature: a steep promontory that plunged down into the equally black waters the captain insisted on skirting. “Besides, there are dozens of accounts in the Archive Recondite which make it quite clear that—”
“Tell me you’re not about to quote the same scholars who you’ve proven to be wrong about almost everything?” Ahearn’s incredulity was loud enough to draw a sharp glance from Nolus.
Druadaen shook his head, but grinned, too. “When scholars draw upon ships’ logs and incidents reported by multiple observers, I don’t dismiss them out of hand.”
“Fine for you, but I’ll put my faith in the locals,” Ahearn countered, nodding toward the low-sided shallop that had drawn abeam, crowding sail it sheered off toward the southern landmass.
Druadaen didn’t point out that there was no way to know if the ship in question was truly “local.” The Atremoënse had been passing such boats ever since they’d entered the long strait that cut through the continent of Far Amitryea from east to west: the Earthrift Channel. A natural artery for trade and schools of migrating fish, its fickle winds and narrow stretches favored small hulls rigged to catch the wind from all angles.
Nolus had overheard. “That boat is not ‘local,’ but from back Dorzhena-way,” he asserted. “Unlikely they’re in these waters much. Pilot!” he growled to the man at the wheel. “Give me another point to starboard.”
“Aye, Captain. With respect, sir, that puts us at the edge of the shallows.”
Nolus shook his head. “We’ve a mile and more before they’re a worry. Besides, better risking the shallows than the deeps around Dasgal’s Mantle.”
Ahearn squinted up at him. “Around what?”
Nolus pointed south at the sheer-sided promontory. “That headland.”
“Aye, but… ‘Mantle’?”
“Do you not see the shape? Like the body of a squid?”
Ahearn peered at it, shook his head. “Don’t see it.”
Nolus’ smile was mirthless. “You might, yet.”
Druadaen turned to him. “I’ve seen the name on charts, but who or what is Dasgal?”
The captain glanced down. “You’ve not heard of Dasgal’s Kraken?”
Ahearn rolled his eyes, shook his head by way of response.
Nolus answered with a shake of his own. “I’m surprised Dunarra would send an Outrider to Far Amitryea without knowing that.”
Druadaen did not point out that his first official assignment to Far Amitryea had simply been an ill-disguised excuse to send him away from his homeland. This second journey, while entirely voluntary, was also far more needful. The same incident that resulted in his being driven from Dunarra by the proverbial stick of official displeasure had also precipitated an equally proverbial carrot: his present invitation to Shadowmere, tendered by its enigmatic Lady of the Mirror.
But Druadaen had boarded the Atremoënse determined not to share these tangled details with Nolus or his crew, and he had no reason to revisit that decision now. He simply shook his head, reaffirming, “I have never heard of Dasgal’s Kraken.”
The captain didn’t respond, however. He was staring at the shallop. It was marked by two stern lights that guttered sharply in the breeze as it heeled harder southward. Nolus strangled what should have been a shout into a loud, hoarse growl: “Those idiots! They’ll get us all killed!”
“Perhaps they haven’t heard of Dasgal’s Kraken, either,” Ahearn speculated, following the boat’s speedy progress. His voice was innocent; his averted face wore a mischievous grin.
“Make sport at your peril, Swordsman,” Nolus snapped. “Outrider Druadaen, you’d do better by having better friends. Now, about Dasgal,” he muttered, not seeing Ahearn’s hard, resentful glance. “He was a figure of some importance in one of Amitryea’s many wars. Some accounts say he made an ally of the Kraken. Others say that he was its enemy and found a way to bind it forever in the Mere-Moat that surrounds Shadowmere.
“Whatever the details might be, the Kraken that Dasgal put in this place”—he waved at the black land beyond the receding shallop—“dwells there still, over a thousand years later.”
Coming to stand beside Druadaen, Ahearn had to duck his head so that the quaking of his neck and shoulders might not betray his muffled laughter.
“And what of the Kraken now?” prompted Druadaen, trying to keep Nolus’ focus upon him. “Is it still seen?”
The Corrovani captain shrugged. “Rarely, and there’s no knowing if it’s the original or its malicious progeny. It’s rarer still that any live to tell of it; the waters around Dasgal’s Mantle remain as dangerous as they ever were. At night or in the mist—but especially when both render mariners blind—ships go missing without a trace. Sometimes driftwood washes up on the island’s northern shores. Sometimes a crewman’s body rises to the inky surface of the Mere-Moat. And I ask you, how would it get there unless dragged into the black trenches that wind beneath the island?” He shook his head. “You’ll find few sailors in Shadowmere who think it something other than the Kraken’s handiwork.”
“Or maybe some other creature?” Druadaen wondered aloud.
“Mayhap, mayhap,” Nolus agreed with a glum nod. “But if the Kraken—”
Ahearn leaned away from the gunwale, pointing. “They’re heading back this way.”
Nolus and Druadaen turned, eyes tracking along the direction set by the swordsman’s finger.
The shallop had tacked across the wind but, being close-hauled as she angled back northward, she was struggling to make headway.
Nolus advanced to the quarterdeck’s rail like a sleepwalker. “By the Helpers, no… ” Druadaen could not tell whether the captain’s entreaty was profane or genuine.
In the next instant, the question became moot; the water swirled and rose in a fitful black surge a dozen yards to the port side of the struggling boat—and then subsided.
“Is that the—?” the pilot began. "
All hands to deck! Arms at the ready!” Nolus interrupted.
—Just as a sinuous shape slid up out of the water on the other side of the fleeing vessel, like a tapered snake of immense proportions. It reared back, poised like a cobra.
The quarterdeck’s alarm gong sounded; rather than quietly going below to rouse the crew, the pilot had resorted to the fastest but much louder means.
Nolus shouted for him to stop.
The towering black tentacle crashed down athwart the shallop’s keel. Planking and strakes flew up in a shower of gleaming fragments. The hull snapped in two with a crack like thunder and less resistance than a toy caught beneath a wagon wheel. With a gurgling rush, dark water surged into the two halves of the ship, bow and stern rising as it did. Figures struggled in the distempered swells between them, screaming and reaching out toward the distant Atremoënse.
Ahearn uttered an oath and reached for the hilt of his sword. His hand stopped halfway; assessment had apparently overridden instinct, showing him the futility of that reflex.
From the other side of the sinking wreck, another tentacle jetted up out of the water, but rose to twice the height and steadily widened as it did. Druadaen swallowed; the still-unrevealed creature was many times larger than its first attack had suggested. The slick black appendage passed appraisingly over the debris in the water then swept across it, rather than down.
As it grazed the surface, the tentacle’s underside turned sideways. It was not furnished with suckers, but questing radial clusters of hooks and barbs that snapped like bear traps upon whatever they touched. They caught up a good amount of shattered wood, but mostly pincered or impaled the boat’s struggling crewmen before pulling them down under the low swells.
Feet thudded on the deck behind Druadaen. Familiar voices cursed, gasped, or managed to do both simultaneously.
“First Bole,” S’ythreni’s voice hissed at his ear, “is that Dasgal’s Kraken?”
Leave it to an Iava to know ancient lore, Druadaen thought. But his reply was, “Possibly.”
Umkhira drew up to the gunwale on his other side. “Elweyr,” she said hoarsely over her shoulder, “can your mancery protect us from that?”
“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” the thaumantic muttered through chattering teeth.
Druadaen heard Nolus muttering to a crewman at the base of the quarterdeck stairs. “Shorten sail by half, Master.”
“But sir, we’ll be near dead in the water!” The pilot managed to make his exclamation a loud whisper.
“I’ll ask for your advice when and if I want it. Tend to your wheel. Prepare to give me two more points starboard. And gently! Leave a wake and I’ll feed your fingers to sharks.”
“I’m with the pilot,” Ahearn grumbled. “The faster we move away from that beast, the better.” D
ruadaen shook his head. “Nolus knows what he’s about.”
Ahearn’s Adam’s apple worked rapidly. “Which is?”
“Trying not to attract the beast’s attention.” Druadaen shot a glance upward at the furling mainsails. “Even at this hour, with the moons still up, that square-rigged canvas is like a bright flag and a strong gust will set it flapping loudly. Best to bear away into a gradual turn and leave a small wake.”
Despite having little knowledge of ships, Umkhira nodded her understanding. “I have hunted many creatures that are not easily distracted from a kill, but once they are, that distraction becomes their new quarry.”
As if to underscore the creature’s fixation upon its present prey, three tentacles breached the surface with a blast of foam and spray, curled around the rapidly sinking halves of the boat and drew them—and the howling men clinging to them—under the risers so abruptly that twin geysers shot up.
A few paddling survivors waved to the Atremoënse, their distant cries so faint that Druadaen could not make out the words, only that they were desperate, weeping entreaties.
A tentacle slipped up to sweep the surface and, almost as a lazy afterthought, gathered them down into the lightless depths.
Only then did Druadaen realize that the innocuous mirror-steel bracer around his wrist had unfurled into its true form: the small metallic dragon shape that the Uulamantre called a velene. Its neck was fully extended, its long snout questing until the last ripples of the creature had subsided and the sea was calm again.
“Now can we go a little faster?” Ahearn muttered as if he hoped for the captain to overhear.
“No need,” Druadaen answered, nodding toward the enigmatic velene as it transitioned back to a bracer in the blink of an eye. “The danger is past.”
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