‘The bones gave way. One stuck up like a little ivory tower from the top of his foot. Oh, how he screamed. I stood beside him, and I looked up at my witnesses, and waited and waited until he could scream no more. And then I tightened the screw another quarter turn!’
For a long moment, the world paused around me. Even the ship seemed to hover, motionless and nearly level. A father I did not know? A father she had tortured. She had tortured someone; of that I was certain. She spoke of it as if it were the most delicious meal she had ever eaten, or the loveliest song ever heard. But my father? I knew my father. He was Nettle’s father, too, and he was my mother’s husband all those years. Of course he was my father.
But as if my world teetered as the ship did, the question had to rise. What if he was not my father? What if he never had been? Burrich hadn’t been Nettle’s father. I would not have been the first child handed off to foster-parents. But Molly was my mother. Of that I was certain. Unless … I wondered an unthinkable thing about my mother. Would not that explain why I looked nothing like him? Wouldn’t it explain why he had left me so easily that day? He’d said he’d had to go, that he had to save the battered old beggarman. The blind beggarman, with the broken hand and the lumpy foot …
And then the ship made a slow, sickening tip. I felt the ship must stand on its nose. Did we move? I could not tell until the sickening impact, both hard and soft. Something thudded into the wall beside me and then fell to the deck as the ship tried to right herself. I felt we sank, and then bobbed up like a cork. Even below the deck, I heard a crash and men shouting. I wondered what had happened.
‘Sounds like we lost some rigging, maybe even a mast.’ Kerf’s voice came deep and slow in the darkness. Then with rising urgency he asked, ‘Where are we going? When did we board a ship? I was taking my prize, my won woman, home to my mother! Where is she? How did we get here?’
‘Control him!’ Dwalia warned Vindeliar savagely, but he made no response. I slid my foot across the floor and in the dark I found a yielding lump.
‘I think Vindeliar hit his head,’ I said, and then cursed myself for a fool. He was unconscious and could not stop me. I did not think Kerf would care. This was my best chance to kill her and free all of us. The ship was shuddering around us. Without warning, it began to climb again. I heard Vindeliar’s body slide across the floor.
Weapon. I needed a weapon. There was nothing in the room that would serve me as a weapon. I had nothing I could use to kill her.
Except Kerf.
‘You are a prisoner. As am I.’ I tried to deepen and smooth my voice. I needed to sound rational and older. Not like a terrified child. ‘They took Alaria from you and sold her as a slave. Before that, they lost Lady Shun for you forever, by tricking you into bringing her back to her captors instead of taking her home to safety. Remember, Kerf? Remember how they dragged you through a magic stone and almost made you lose your mind? They did it again. And now they have tricked you into leaving Chalced and your home behind.’ Despite my efforts, my voice had gone higher and childish as I tried to sting him with the wrongs done to him.
He made no response to my words. I risked it all. ‘We have to kill her. We must kill Dwalia. It’s the only way we can stop her!’
‘You evil little bitch!’ Dwalia shrieked at me. I heard her scrabbling, trying to get out of her bunk, but the tilt of the ship was on my side. She was downhill from me. I could not wait for Kerf. He was too addled still. I tried to move quietly in the dark as I half-crawled and half-slid toward her. I had only moments to reach her before the ship would level itself on a wave’s crest.
I slid into the edge of the bunk, fought to stand and felt for her. She was struggling to rise. I tried not to touch her, to give her no warning of where I was or what I intended. I had to guess where her neck was as I darted my hands toward her head. I touched her nose and chin with one hand, shifted down and seized her throat in both hands. I gripped and squeezed.
She slapped me, hard, on the side of my head. My ear rang. I held tight but my hands were too small. At best, I was pinching the sides of her neck, not throttling her of air as I’d hoped to do. She screamed words at me that I did not understand, but I could hear the hatred in them. I snaked my head in to try to bite her throat and found her cheek instead. That would not kill her but I bit her anyway, clenching my teeth tight in her meaty face and trying to grind my teeth together. She screamed and battered at me with her fists, and I suddenly knew she was hitting me hoping that I’d let go because she feared to tear me away from her face, knowing that I’d take a bite of it with me. Living meat is much tougher than cooked. I worked my teeth back and forth, grinding through her flesh, feeling savage and triumphant in equal measure. She was hurting me, but it would cost her. I’d see to that. I closed my jaws and worried her flesh as if I were a wolf shaking a rabbit.
Then Kerf blundered into us. I knew a surge of hope. With him helping me, we could kill her. The ship was upright. He could draw his sword and stab it right into her. I wanted to shout this to him, but I would not let go my bite. Then, to my horror, he seized me. ‘Let go,’ he said in the dull voice of a sleepwalker.
‘Pull her off,’ Vindeliar ordered him. He’d only been temporarily stunned.
‘No! No, no, no!’ Dwalia was shrieking. She seized hold of my head and held it close to her face, but Kerf was stronger. I felt my teeth meet and then as he jerked me away the meat of her face tore and came with me. As if I were a shovelful of earth, Kerf tossed me aside. I hit the floor, spat Dwalia’s cheek out and then slid as the ship began to tilt again. I wound up in a corner and braced myself there. Dwalia was screaming hysterically as Vindeliar nattered at her, demanding was she hurt, what was wrong, what should he do now? I gagged at what I had done. Her blood slimed my chin. I scraped my teeth over my tongue and spat Dwalia out on the floor.
Vindeliar was busy with Dwalia. I had no idea where Kerf was or what he was doing. Get out. As soon as she could, she would beat me. I knew now how much she would enjoy hurting me. Nothing would stop her from killing me now.
In the darkness of the tossing ship, I’d lost my bearings. When the ship pressed me to one wall, I spidered along it but encountered no doorframe. The ship hit the wall of water and wrenched sideways. Yells of dismay came from the sailors working the deck. So now it was time to fear something bigger than Dwalia. I decided I would be frightened for the ship sinking after I got out of the cabin and away from her.