He moved to the stairs leading to the deck and began to ascend. “I feel the need of some fresh air.”
I followed him out into the night. The sky was cloudless and the moon bright, painting the ship’s rigging a pale blue as it swayed in the stiff sea breeze. The only crewmen I could see were the helmsman and the dim shape of a boy perched high on the main-mast. “Captain told you to stay in the hold,” the helmsman growled.
“Then go and wake him,” I suggested before joining Al Sorna. He stood resting his forearms on the rail, staring out at the moonlit sea, his expression distant.
“The Teeth of Moesis,” he said, pointing to a cluster of white specks in the distance where waves were breaking on a series of jagged rocks. “Moesis is the Meldenean god of the hunt, a great serpent who fought Margentis, the giant orca god for a day and a night. So great was their struggle they made the sea boil and forced the continents apart. When it was over and Moesis floated dead in the surf his body rotted away but his teeth were left to mark his passing. His spirit joined with the sea and when the Meldeneans rose to hunt the waves it was to him they looked for guidance, for his teeth mark the way to their homeland. We’re in Meldenean waters now. Where I believe your ships never venture.”
“Meldeneans are pirate scum,” I said simply. “Any of our ships would make a valuable prize.”
“And yet the lady Emeren’s vessel was taken here.”
I said nothing. I had unsettling questions of my own on this matter but was reluctant to discuss them with him.
“I understand the ship and crew were allowed to sail on their way,” he went on. “Only the lady was taken.”
I coughed. “The pirates no doubt recognised her value for ransom.”
“Except they asked for no ransom. Only for me to come and fight their champion.” His mouth twitched and I realised I was being baited.
I recalled Emeren’s bitter audience with the Emperor after the Northman’s trial where she had begged for his sentence to be changed. “A death demands a death,” she had railed, her fine features contorted with rage. “The gods demand it. The people demand it. My fatherless son demands it. And I demand it, Sire, as widow to the murdered Hope of this Empire.”
In the chill silence that followed her tirade the Emperor sat silent and unmoving on his throne, the attending guards and courtiers shocked and stiff with trepidation, their eyes fixed firmly on the floor. When the Emperor finally spoke his voice was toneless and devoid of anger as he decreed the Lady Emeren had offended his person and was banished from court until further notice. As far as I knew they hadn’t exchanged a single word since.
“Suspect what you wish,” I told Al Sorna. “But know the Emperor does not scheme, he would never indulge in revenge. His every action is in service to the Empire.”
He laughed. “Your emperor has sent me to the islands to die, my lord. So the Meldeneans can have their revenge on my father and the lady can witness the death of the man who killed her husband. I wonder if it was her idea or theirs.”
I couldn’t fault his reasoning. He was, of course, expected to die. The Hope Killer’s end would be the final act in the trauma of our war with his people, the epilogue to the epic of conflict. Whether this had been in the Emperor’s mind when he agreed to the Meldeneans’ offer I truly don’t know. In any case Al Sorna seemed free of fear and resigned to his fate. I wondered if he actually expected to survive his duel with the Shield, reputedly the finest swordsman ever to wield a blade. The Hope Killer’s story had left me in little doubt as to his own deadly abilities but they were sure to have been dulled by his years of captivity. Even if he did prevail the Meldeneans were unlikely to simply allow the son of the City Burner to sail away unmolested. He was a man going to his doom. I knew it, and so, apparently, did he.