Selena’s hand went to the pocket of her overtunic where the coin of Oshkat still lay. It had survived her fall into the ocean. She hadn’t thought of An-Lan’s reading in weeks, but now the seer’s words were coming back. Beware for the dark will try to swallow you, consume you, to make you something like itself.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. Selena remembered another of the images An-Lan’s smoke had shown her: the Sacrifice. He is wounded. He bleeds. He will die for you.
She glanced up at Ilior fearfully. “You should stay. All of you should stay here on the ship. I will fight her myself. It’s not safe—”
Whistle whistled. A short, shrill tweet.
Julian held up his hand and the crew froze at once. The water was dark blue and rolling with mild swells but closer to the islands it bore a strange, ruddy color. Like blood, Selena thought, turning around to look for whatever it was that had caught Whistle’s attention. Then she noticed Julian wasn’t watching the sea with his sharp eyes, but listening carefully. For long moments, only sounds were the creaking of the ship and the snap of canvas sails against the wind.
Selena went to the helm, beside Julian. “What did Whistle see?”
“I’ll be pricked if I know. But maybe it’ll keep on…”
The captain sucked in a breath and then Selena heard it too. A clacking sound at the bow, like someone tapping on the wood with a sharp stick. All heads turned to look and Whistle let out another blast, this one tapering away in breathy fear.
Selena saw an enormous red pincer, like that of boiled lobster, reach up and over the prow. A second pincer followed a moment later, and then the head. Six black teacup-size eyes appeared over a round O of a mouth that was clustered with spiny teeth. Its body was covered in segmented chitin plates in fiery red, and eight pointed legs clicked and clacked as it scrabbled over the rail. A hooked tail curved over the body; the tip was huge and bulbous, sprouting a black stinger as long as a dagger. It landed on the deck with a thud and began to scuttle.
“Fuck me dead,” Julian breathed, and tore aside his long coat to draw his scimitars while Svoz materialized beside him.
Ilior unsheathed his long sword. “It looks like…”
“Why, it’s a sea scorpion,” Svoz said airily.
Selena licked her lips and tightened her grip on her sword that she didn’t remember drawing. “There’s only one. Svoz, kill it,” she ordered as Julian shouted for the crew to get back.
“There’s only one now,” Svoz smiled broadly to show a row of black teeth. “They travel in schools. Or is it swarms?” He tapped his chin with a black nail. “Herds? I can never remember…”
“Svoz, shut up and get down there,” Julian said through clenched teeth. “We’ll back you up if you need it.”
“Back me up? Against one?” The sirrak snorted. “You amuse me, Captain.”
“Is it true they come in swarms?” Selena asked Julian without taking her eyes off the sea scorpion that was scuttling back and forth along the main deck like a roach searching for scraps. The crew had scrambled up the rigging and watched from above as the sirrak moved to do battle with it.
“Yes, but they live in shallows,” Julian said. “We’re too deep. I don’t know how this one found us. It must be a rogue or straggler.”
Selena watched Svoz stride to the scorpion and realized his weapon of choice this day was a cudgel, the head of which was the size of an ale cask.
“Svoz, no! Stop!” Selena shouted. “The deck!”
Julian made a strangled sound as Svoz brought the enormous cudgel down on the scorpion’s back. It exploded in a mess of shattered exoskeleton and greenish innards. Under the gore was a cudgel-sized crater of cracked wood. A pincer twitched in death throes. The sirrak raised his weapon again out of pure murderous glee rather than necessity.
Julian loosed the vilest oath Selena had ever heard and then said, “Svoz, stop! My deck, damn you!”
Svoz stopped his downward blow and rested the cudgel on his shoulder. He regarded the damage he had done with mock dismay.
“Oh dear. Do you have a throw rug? A mat, perhaps? None will be the wiser…”
“Bloody shit-eating bastard.” Julian started down the ladder but Selena grabbed his arm.
“Why is Svoz ignoring my orders but obeying yours?” she demanded. Ilior’s shadow fell over both of them.
Julian’s lip curled and he tore his arm from her grasp. “Maybe because you already have your own winged pet to do your bidding.”
Selena straightened. “Answer my question.”
“Because I bought him.”
The ship lurched; sending them all off balance, and there was a grinding sound beneath their feet.
“Bought him? With what?”
But Whistle was whistling again and Julian ignored her. “We’ve run aground.” He dashed down to the main deck and Selena had no choice to but to follow. “How in the bloody Deeps…?”
Julian ran to the rail and peered over. The deep blue water was gone, and instead the ship was cradled by the light, rust color of the shallows. The bottom silt was visible. Isle Saliz, once a distant mass of dark green was now looming before them in the early morning light.
“I don’t understand it,” Selena said. “We were two leagues out before the scorpion. It’s not possible…”
“It’s not possible,” Julian sneered. “And yet we are now a few hundred spans from the shore and my ship has bloody run aground. Grunt! Cat! Furl the—”
Ilior was suddenly there, his shadow falling over Julian. With one smooth motion, the Vai’Ensai reached down and gripped Julian by the throat and jerked him close. Every person on the ship froze, watching, as the air thickened with tension.
“She is a Paladin of the Aluren and a veteran of the Zak’reth war,” Ilior said, his voice dangerously low. “I grow weary of listening to you talk to her with such contempt.”
“Ilior, stop.” Selena pulled at his arm but it was unmovable as a tree trunk.
But while she struggled against the Vai’Ensai, Julian did not. His face was turning an alarming shade of red and the veins were beginning to bulge in his forehead but he made no effort to extricate himself from Ilior’s grip. Perhaps he knew it would be futile. Instead, he pulled the flintlock from his belt, brought it up between him and the dragonman, and aimed it square between Ilior’s eyes.
Selena gasped. “No, Julian. Ilior, stop…”
Ilior paid the gun no heed. “You will apologize,” he said, “and that will be the last thing you ever say to her.”
Julian cocked the flintlock.
The crew recovered themselves and surrounded the pair, brandishing their cutlasses at Ilior. It was Svoz who touched a weapon to Ilior’s neck, leveling the tip of his pike at the vein pulsing there.
“Tut, tut. Master Captain might blow your face off before I get to have any fun with you, but in the meanwhile, I feel I must make my new allegiances clear, brother.” He pushed the blade into Ilior’s neck just deep enough before drawing blood.