Royce held a hand out palm up, and Hadrian stopped moving, freezing in place as if he were playing a kid’s game. He could see Royce tilting his head like a dog trying to listen. He shook his head and motioned for him to follow again.
The two had left the rest of the party on the beach, safely back near where Arista had found the canvas, as they scouted the ship. It looked abandoned, but Royce refused to take chances. What they found on deck only further suggested it was deserted. The wood was rough and weathering badly, paint was peeling, and crabs scurried about as if they had lived there for some time. The bow plaque indicated the name: Harbinger. Still, one last mystery needed investigation. The little ship was tiny compared to the Emerald Storm, just large enough to support a below-deck cabin, and they needed to see what was inside.
The door lay closed and Royce inched up on it as if it were a viper ready to strike. When he reached the cabin, he glanced back at Hadrian, who drew his swords. Royce carefully twisted the latch. The corroded metal stuck and he struggled to free it. Then the door fell inward with a creek and banged against the inner wall. Hadrian rushed forward just in case. He fully expected the cabin to be empty, but to his surprise, the faint light falling through the doorway revealed a man.
He lay on a small bed within the small cabin. He was dead, his face rotted, the eyes and lips gone and most of the flesh eaten, perhaps by the crabs. Hadrian guessed the man had died not too long ago, less than a year certainly, perhaps only six months. He wore sailors’ clothes and around his neck was a white kerchief.
Hadrian whispered, “My god, is that…”
Royce nodded. “It’s Bernie.”
Hadrian remembered Bernie as the wiry topman from the Emerald Storm. He along with Staul—whom Royce had killed—Dr. Levy, and the historian Antun Bulard had worked for Sentinel Thranic. They were the third and final team the Patriarch had sent in to obtain the horn. The last Hadrian had seen of them was in the dungeons beneath the Palace of the Four Winds.
“This looks like blood on the bed and floor,” Royce said.
“I’ll take your word for it—I just see a shadow—but what’s that around his belly?”
“Linen—bloodstained. Looks like he died from a stab wound to the stomach, but it was slow.” Royce climbed out of the cabin and looked around the ship, bending down to study the decking and the lines.
“What are you looking for?”
“Blood,” he replied. “There’s blood all over the place, spots on the deck, handprints on the ropes, and on the wheel. I think he set sail wounded.”
“He could have been attacked on board.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it. He looks to have initially survived whatever fight gave him the wound, that means the other guy must have been hurt worse, only there’s no other body.”
“Might have dumped it in the sea.”
“Mighta, but there would still be signs of a fight and blood—a lot of blood—somewhere. All I see are dribbles and drips. No, I think he was wounded, got the boat rigged, and set sail…” Royce ran to the wheel, then the stern. “Yep, rudder is tied. He set the ship, tied the rudder; then, feeling weak, he lay down below, where he slowly bled to death.”
“So who knifed him?”
Royce shrugged. “Ghazel?”
Hadrian shook his head. “It’s been—what? Three, four months? You saw that bracelet back there. The Ghazel have passed by here. They’ve seen this ship but haven’t touched it. If they killed him, they would have taken it. No, Thranic had a deal with the Ghazel, remember? He said something about a guide and safe passage.”
“So Merrick or the Patriarch managed to cut a deal with the Ghazel, letting them come in here?”
“Seems to be the case.”
Hadrian waved to the others and dropped a rope ladder over the side.
“All safe and sound, I trust?” Alric asked, coming aboard.
“Safe,” Hadrian said. “As for sound, I defer to our resident expert in the ways of seafaring.”
Wyatt stood in the middle of the ship and slammed his feet down on the wood of the deck. He then grabbed a rope and climbed up to the masthead, inspecting the lines and the canvas. Lastly, he went below. When he returned, he said, “A little worn and neglected, but she’s a fine ship as far as Tenkin doggers go.”
“Tenkin?” Mauvin asked.
Wyatt nodded. “And that’s Bernie in the cabin, right?”
“Pretty sure,” Hadrian replied.
“Then that means this isn’t just some underground salt lake.”
“What do you mean?”
“This boat sailed here from the Palace of the Four Winds. This must open out to the Goblin Sea—some cove the Ba Ran Ghazel discovered that goes underground and is navigable all the way under Alburn to here.”
“That’s how the Ghazel have been getting in and managing to send scouting parties around Amberton Lee,” Hadrian said.
“As nice as all that is,” Alric began, “how are we going to get this ship into the water?”
“We aren’t,” Wyatt told him. “It will do that all by itself, in about six hours.”
“Huh?”